Children are a source of happiness and pride for parents. As a parent, of course, you want your children to achieve their dreams and aspirations. The success of children in the future is greatly influenced by the process of growth and development in childhood. Therefore, you need to know the stages of child development and explore their potential in order to provide the support needed by children.

Early Childhood Development Stage

Early childhood is the age from birth to 8 years. Early age is divided into 4 phases, namely the infant phase (0–1 years), toddlers (2–3 years), play groups (3–6 years), and early school age (6–8 years). In this period, there were three educational patterns which were the responsibility of parents, namely:

- Hone patterns: bring out and hone children's talents.

- Compassion: strengthening the relationship between parents and children.

- Parenting: meeting the needs of food, clothing, shelter and children's health.

So that parents can carry out these three educational patterns, the first step that must be taken is to know and understand the stages of child development as follows.

1. Physical Development Stage

Early childhood physical development includes weight gain and height, brain development, and gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are the ability to move, jump and run. Fine motor skills involve small muscles and eye-hand coordination, such as folding and tearing of paper.

2. Social-Emotional Development Stage

The emotional development of children begins at birth. Basically, emotions are a way for children to express feelings and attract the attention of those around them, especially parents.

3. Learning Stage

At the age of 0–1 years, children learn to crawl, walk, run, and talk. At the age of 2–6 years, children begin to learn to draw, write, and read. Please note that each child will show a different way of learning.

4. Socializing Stage

At this stage, children begin to socialize and be sensitive to their environment. Children will imitate the behavior and words of the people around them and begin to enjoy playing with their friends.

5. Cognitive Stage

The cognitive stage is very important because at this time, children begin to show the ability to solve problems, understand their wants and needs, be able to think logically, and finally be ready to face their adulthood.

Recognizing Children's Potential

In addition to knowing and understanding the child's development stage, another important task of parents is to recognize the child's potential so that they can guide and develop their talents optimally. To recognize children's potential, you can do the following things.

1. Provide stimulation so that children are interested in exploring new things. When children show different enthusiasm for an activity, it could be that your child is gifted in that field.

2. Provide opportunities for children to do their own activities so that they feel independent. You will also know that the child does an activity because he likes it, not to follow parental orders.

3. Observing children's behavior and expressions before, during, and after doing an activity. When doing activities that match their interests and talents, children will learn quickly, look fun and focused, feel satisfied, and want to repeat them.

Parents must understand the stage of child development and explore its potential because it is related to the educational process that the child will undergo. When you are going to send your children to school, consider a school that pays attention to the developmental stage and potential of children in their teaching and learning process, such as an inclusive school.

Inclusive schools not only provide opportunities for children with special needs and ordinary students to interact naturally, but also meet the needs of each child according to their potential. You can dig further from various sources about how inclusive schools can provide the best education according to the stage of development and the potential that the child has.