This morning, I attended a caregiver workshop on developmental milestones for ages 3-5. It was hosted at Kaia’s school (the larger location a few blocks down), and the presentation was done by an instructional coordinator and a social worker who work for the Department of Education. Chris said he didn’t think it would be worth going to since he’d likely be able to find out all the information via a simple Google search. While that is likely true given the endless parenting resources that are available online, I thought it would be good to go for several reasons: 1) it’s nice to have in-person interaction, especially since I work from home 100 percent of the time), 2) it would be an interesting forum to discuss questions and concerns in a group format and have back and forth conversations, and 3) given these are done by the DOE, we’re lucky we even get access to this type of thing, so if we don’t take advantage of it and the turnout is low, they may end up discontinuing these, which would be to the detriment of those who don’t have the same resources we do.

And as I learned during the session, while data and general guidelines are useful and can always be obtained from pediatricians, medical professionals, and reputable online resources, it’s nice to be able to hear anecdotes about what social workers are actually seeing in the field. This format of nonfiction, “self-help” type book is also what I like the best: opinions backed up by data, as well as personal anecdotes peppered throughout. I always love hearing personal stories because our entire life is a continuous story. The social workers shared some scary anecdotes about developmental milestones getting delayed. They said that in the last five or so years, there have been an increase in cases of children as young as 2-years old who need occupational therapy referrals because they are somehow unable to turn a page of a book. They have no exposure at home to physical books, so instead, they get an iPad. They are so used to the motion of “swiping” up, down, left, and right, that their fingers just do not know how to pinch together to turn a paper page. That was mind boggling to me and made me feel so sad.

The families who don’t have the resources to buy their children physical, hard copy books, and/or the families who are so strapped for time that they cannot sit down and read a real book with their child — those are the families that need workshops and resources like these most. And I hope they are able to get access to them sooner rather than later.