As children reaches the age of four, significant physical changes takes place. They lose all their baby fat and chubby little faces and as they participate in all new kinds of activities, their bones strengthen and they start to build some muscle. They get taller and pick up some weight and this allows them to develop better gross motor skills.

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As their brains develop, so does their eye-hand coordination and fine motor development skills develop even faster. It gets easier for them to button their shirts and cut with scissors as the muscles in their fingers get stronger. As they practice and develop these skills, those activities that they were once unable to do and was only a frustration for them now starts making sense and is thus becoming more enjoyable.

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When building a puzzle, for example, cognitive development improves which enables them to physically fit the pieces together using their hands their brains. Add a friend to the puzzle building activity and social development takes place while interacting with a friend and brainstorming about which piece goes where. Positive social development causes positive personality development.

Physical development can then also be linked to cognitive-, social- and personality development.

Excellent, so where's the pain in that?

In a perfect world, that would be the perfect theory!

Not everyone "grows" this perfectly and although each person develops in his/her own time, there are also certain things that can slow down or influence physical development. Let's call them "growing pains" for argument's sake:

1. The emotional well-being of the child plays a big role in delayed physical growth. Stress and emotional problems can delay the production of growth hormones, influence the immune system and slow down the digestion processes - all of which can influence physical and cognitive development.
   
   Growth Hormone Deficiency
   
   
2. The lack of adequate nutrition can have a huge impact on physical and cognitive development. The parent may not even be at fault in many cases but need to find other ways for presenting food - toddlers can be very picky eaters and may even refuse to eat vegetables or other nutritious meals. This can lead to malnutrition, undernourishment and in some cases, even obesity when replacing nutrition with quick fixes. All of these can lead to impaired growth, risk a delay in motor- and mental development and may even decrease cognitive ability.
   
   Poor nutrition
   
   
3. Something else that can not only influence physical- or cognitive development, but also may have an impact on personality development is of course, DNA. Genes that are related to those of a parent with a family history of developmental issues, may, by itself, cause delays of certain areas of development.
   
   Heredity
   
   

I came across this very interesting video on YouTube that contains tips for parents on how they can spot early signs of developmental problems:

Video Source

Resources:

http://edge.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/07_KUTHER.pdf
https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/the-long-term-consequences-of-negative-stress/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908499/
http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072820144/student_view0/chapter3/index.html

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