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DEVELOPMENTAL CHALLENGES

Managing Early Challenges

The early years can be a time of joy and wonder, but challenges and concerns are also common. 

When adults provide age-appropriate support, young people can grow and learn from difficulties. But none of us need to make it up as we go along. There are proven, science-backed ways to approach challenges children face at different ages and stages.

Challenges can occur at any time in a child’s development, from the early years to the tween and teenager years. Learn about some of the challenges for children early in life and the tools you can use to overcome milestones and delays, adversity and mental health concerns.

Milestones & Delays

Children develop many important skills in the earliest stages of life, laying the foundation for later learning and abilities. The things children learn to do are called developmental milestones and they typically happen at certain ages. 

It is important for adults to pay attention to children’s progress toward these milestones. For example, it’s important to notice whether one-year-olds have said their first word or when a child takes their first steps.  

Track your child’s milestones with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) free Milestone Tracker app or get a list of milestones by each age

Helping Children with Delays

When children do not reach the milestones at the expected time, that is known as a developmental delay. If you notice a delay, or simply think something isn't right, don't wait to act. There may be a simple solution or an intervention that can help. The sooner we address delays the easier they are to address.

 

Child achieving developmental milestone of walking
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If you suspect a delay in your child’s development, talk to your pediatrician and/or connect with an early intervention program like Maryland’s Infant and Toddlers Program. It provides free support to children younger than 36 months with a qualifying delay. If you're a caregiver and have concerns about a child in your life, you can make a referral for support.

Make a referral to Maryland Infant and Toddlers.

Text CHILD to 818818 for information about early intervention and special education services.

You can also search for early intervention programs in your area.

Dad comforting child during adversity

Adversity

Adverse childhood experiences and environments (ACEs) are common. If children don’t get support when facing adversity, it can cause long-lasting harm. ACEs include things like witnessing violence or experiencing discrimination. 

When children are exposed to severe adversity, and adults aren’t there to help them cope, their stress systems can over-activate. Their developing bodies and brains are flooded with harmful levels of stress hormones. This “toxic stress response” increases the risk of later health problems. 

Yet children can tolerate severe stress -- if stable, responsive adult relationships are in place to buffer the negative impact.

To nurture children’s potential, it is important that we work together to prevent serious adversity through good policies and programs. We can also ensure that every community is equipped to support people who have faced severe adversity, making resilience a real possibility.

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If you or your child have experienced ACEs, there are steps you can take to support healing and resilience. Keep learning with these mind resilience resources from the Maryland Department of Health, Behavioral Health Administration.

Call 2-1-1 to Get Connected to Resources

If you know a family that's feeling overwhelmed, encourage them or help them to call 2-1-1. They'll get connected to resources that can relieve some of the stress. 211 is powered by the Maryland Information Network, which is a backbone organization of EFC and can help connect families to community resources and support.

By reaching out and making sure all families have access to community resources and support in times of stress, we are working collectively to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Reporting potential mistreatment

We all have a role in ensuring kids are safe and free from abuse or neglect. Keep reading about the signs and symptoms of abuse and neglect.

Talk with law enforcement or a local social service agency if you suspect abuse or neglect. Find the Children’s Protective Services agency near you. They accept anonymous reports.

Child Advocacy Centers

If you are uncertain whether or not what you are observing may be abuse or neglect, Maryland has child advocacy centers. These centers are child-focused and have resources on-site to provide intervention and treatment.

By supporting families, we can also prevent child abuse and neglect. We all play a role and can work together to keep children safe.

Find a Child Advocacy Center near you

father comforting crying child

How to handle mental health challenges

With the support of their parents and caregivers, young children learn how to express and manage their emotions, form secure attachments, feel empathy and engage with people and the world around them in age-appropriate ways. 

When a child’s social and emotional development unfolds as expected, this is strong child mental health. For example, we can tell that infants are showing signs of good mental health when they start to do things like make eye contact, smile or calm down when a familiar person holds them. 

There are many social and emotional milestones that babies, toddlers and preschoolers express and explore by a certain age. If obstacles delay or disrupt a child as they move through these stages, it’s important to spot the signs and take action. 

Kathleen Connors
Courtesy: University of Maryland School of Medicine

Mental health is really central to health. You know, you can’t have good health without good mental health. I see them as intertwined and interconnected. Good mental health is about being able to regulate your thoughts, your feelings, your moods. It’s also about being able to be in healthy relationships because that’s critical to your social health. 

~ Kay Connors, MSW, LCSW-C, Baltimorean and Director of  Taghi Modarressi Center for Infant Study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

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Use these tools to help you and your child identify and label their feelings: 

Identify feelings: Feelings Wheel 

Manage emotions: Emotional Literacy Feeling Faces Cards

mom and daughter practicing self-regulation skills

Self-Regulation Techniques

Self-regulation is your child’s ability to calm himself.  Observing and imitating you is the most important way your child learns to self-regulate. So learning how to regulate our emotions and modeling that for our children is key.

You can also:

  • Provide a safe environment for kids to discuss and process their thoughts and feelings. 
  • Create a “Cool-down” or “Time In” place in your home to help your child recognize the need to manage their big emotions on their own in safe and healthy ways. You can also use the “Cool-down/Time In” place to model use of it when you need to calm yourself.
    • Fill the space with tools that help calm the fight, flight, freeze response and manage overwhelming emotions:  Play-Doh, soft blanket, pillow, a fan or pinwheel, fidget toys, paper and crayons.
  • Practice mindfulness, which is a mental state where you're focused on the present moment. Mindfulness can be done anywhere and in just a few moments. Mindful uses S.N.A.C.K. as a quick way to achieve a mindful moment.
    • S - Stop what you're doing
    • N - Notice what's happening
    • A - Accept without judgment what's happening
    • C - Be curious about the situation by asking questions about your experience and environment.
    • K - Be kind to yourself and others to get back on track.
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Mindfulness exercises

Practice mindfulness exercises to self-regulate.

Use free apps like Insight Timer and Liberate. Try these paid apps for a free-trial period, Ten Percent Happier or Headspace.

You can also listen to mindfulness talks and meditations on Dharma Seed, a website that gathers, preserves and freely shares them.

You can even try this deep-breathing Butterfly exercise together to feel calm and manage tough emotions.

Call 9-8-8 for Mental Health Support

If an infant, toddler, or child is experiencing emotional or behavioral challenges, search the EFC resource database for mental health services by age or call 9-8-8 for a referral.

Crisis Text Line

You can also text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.

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External systemic factors impact mental health 

Many of the factors that contribute to early mental health challenges are outside of a parent or caregiver’s control. 

For example, a child’s ability to develop positive mental health can be impacted by social problems like: 

  • economic inequality 
  • discrimination
  • systemic racism
  • other forms of inequity

That’s because unfair opportunities for good jobs, housing or education place extra stress on families. 

An overload of stress can compromise families’ ability to engage in the back-and-forth, “serve-and-return” interactions that young children need to develop social and emotional skills. 

Maryland Mental Health Policies and Programs

On What’s the 211? Podcast, Kay Connors talks about some of the mental health policies in Maryland that are helping people who have experienced discrimination and racism. 

She also discusses the Taghi Modarressi Center for Infant Study, which provides early childhood mental health services. Listen or read the transcript.

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EFC's Commitment to Maryland Children

Essentials for Childhood is committed to making sure that all children have a full, fair and just opportunity to reach their potential. That calls us to recognize and address the harmful role that racism plays in the environments and conditions where children live, grow, learn and play.

Racism – which can take the form of personal prejudices or unfair and unjust institutional policies and practices – exposes children of color to unique and ongoing stressors. For example, witnessing or experiencing hateful racist incidents can cause or compound racial trauma. Without timely, effective supports, trauma can affect people’s health, wellbeing and ability to function. Unaddressed trauma in a family can be a source of serious stress for children.

Racism influences the places and spaces where children of color are developing. Policies of the past created racially segregated neighborhoods that excluded Black families from communities with good schools, good jobs and safe places to play. Policies and practices today perpetuate segregation and channel fewer resources into communities of color, shaping children’s access to opportunities in education, housing, medical care and more.

Racism also makes it more difficult for families of color to avoid financial strain and stress. As families of color encounter barriers to high-quality education, home ownership, high-earning jobs and other avenues to financial security, stresses like financial strain, hunger and housing instability can pile up. Over time, ongoing stressors can interfere with the body’s neurological, endocrine and immune systems.

Because Essentials for Childhood is committed to promoting a just and inclusive world for all Maryland children, we are also committed to promoting policies that eliminate racism and its effects.

What can parents and caregivers do?

Families with young children can be a powerful part of efforts to disrupt interpersonal, cultural and institutional racism. Here are steps we can all take.

Find and reduce your own unconscious biases.

We all absorb biases and stereotypes from our culture and media. They can shape our attitudes and actions - but they don't have to. Read Eight tactics to identify and reduce your implicit biases by the American Academy of Family Practitioners.

Teach your child how to embrace differences and resist racial stereotypes.

Children naturally notice differences from birth and look to adults to learn what they "mean." Learn how to guide young children toward respect and away from racism with Celebrating Differences: Anti-Racist Parenting Right From the Start. Explore the resources at Embrace Race.

Talk about race and identity with your child.

Together with your child, explore and discuss age-appropriate resources about race and ethnicity. Check out Sesame Street Workshop’s science-based award-winning videos, the ABC’s of Racial Literacy and other tools. Read Coming Together! Celebrating positive identity and belonging and Explaining Race!

Helping Your Child Cope with Media Coverage of Community Racial Trauma

Media coverage of community racial trauma and civil unrest can cause children to experience fear, worry, sadness, confusion, and anger. Watch this video about ways to support your child."

Learn how policies can perpetuate racism - or end it.

Watch this TedTalk How Racism Makes Us Sick by Dr. David R. Williams, PhD, MPH, chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Use your voice to advance racial justice!

Join EFC as we push policymakers to consider equity in all decisions that affect families.

Mom holding baby during paid leave

Taking Action

To promote greater mental health and well-being in Maryland, we can tackle the social problems that contribute to family stress.

We know paid leave is critical for new mothers, fathers and adoptive families. Maryland Essentials for Childhood and our partners were coalition members in an advocacy effort to bring paid family leave to Maryland. 

Beginning in 2026, Maryland workers will be paid up to $1000 a week for up to 12 weeks. Keep reading about this new program.

Paid leave can improve outcomes because it enables time for social and emotional connections in families and improves physical and mental health outcomes for mothers and their new baby.

Get connected to parental support

As parents and caregivers, we want the children in our lives to reach their physical, social, and emotional milestones so they can navigate the world with ease. We as adults, after all, are the key resources to help them manage their emotions and behaviors and cope with the ups and downs of life. 

As role models, we can learn and model ways to regulate our emotions and behaviors, including taking care of our own mental and physical health needs. Caring for yourself with the many demands of raising a family can be challenging. You are worth it! And both you and your children will reap the benefits for a lifetime.

EFC wants to connect you to important knowledge and resources that can help you in your parenting journey. We are in this with you!

Search for parent support, mental health and substance use resources for you and the children in your life.