Child Gender Law Development Physical Development Milestones

When one refers to a person's children, one means their offspring – i.e., their sons and daughters, regardless of age.

1 Gender

A female child is called a girl and a male child is a boy (though a small percentage of humans are intersexual, this is a distinction of biological sex, not necessarily social or psychological gender). Apart from the reproductive system, young children do not differ much by sex. Whether cultural and parental practices emphasize or weaken gender identity is subject to debate. In general, the extent to which gender identity is formed during childhood or congenital is a matter of much debate within psychology and genetics.

2 Law

In law, a person who is not yet a legal adult is known as a minor (known in some places as an juvenile, or, in others, as an infant). For example, in many countries a person under the age of 18 is a minor. Most countries give additional legal protection to minors despite their underage status, and all United NationsFlag of the United Nations The United Nations or UN is an international organization made up of states. Almost all countries are members. It was established in San Francisco on October 24, 1945, following the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC, b member states except the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in and SomaliaSomalia ( Somali: Soomaaliya Arabic: As-Sumal , formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic is an African country that exists solely in a de jure capacity. Somalia has no recognized central government authority, national currency, or any other featur have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the ChildThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international convention setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. Many member nation states (countries) of the United Nations have ratified it, eithe, although not all of them have followed it.

3 Development

Child development is the study or examination of processes and mechanisms that operate during the physical and mental development of an infant into an adult.

Pediatrics is the branch of medicineSee drugs, medication, and pharmacology for substances that treat patients. This article is about medical practice. Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with restoring and maintaining health and wellness. Broadly, it is the practical science o relating to the care of children. It encompasses ages from prenatal to teenagers and even young adults (ages 0-21 years).

3.1 Physical development milestones

Ability to lift and control the orientation of the head
Crawling begins
Walking begins
Speech begins
Voice lowers in pitch (especially noticeable in boys)
Pubic hair appears
Genitals and reproductive organs mature
Menses begin (females)
body hair and facial hair appears

Note: the Tanner stages can be used to approximately judge a child's age based on physical development.

3.2 Cognitive development

4 Notable child prodigies

Christian Henry Heinecken (The Infant of Lübeck)
Isaac Albeniz
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sarah Chang

5 Human development

Human development refers to all forms of development above, often in the context of clinical psychology or as human development theory (in economics, an outgrowth of welfare economics).

Both the psychological and economic fields share a special concern with education and language fluency including literacy and numeracy, and with identification and development of more unique talents into the economic variable known as individual capital.

Earlier branches of economics see humans in terms of labour for production, means of persuasion or protection, which tend to be skills acquired only in adolescence and adulthood. The human development view is more evident in sports, music and other performing arts, such as acting where the child begins training often as early as three years of age. Think of Tiger Woods and his early practice golfing.

While there are problems with such early "streaming", child murder, child abandonment, military use of children and other major social ills are thought to be reduced by a human development approach – as there is a high value assigned to children by the state.

The UN Human Development Index is a means of measuring well-being used to rank states by these criteria. Although child abuse is thought to be lower in countries with a high ranking on this Index, that is not easily proven.

6 See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about .

List of child related articles

Human Human development

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