Imagine you are building a house. You make detailed plans for the study with specifications about how big the room should be, where the desk should go and the size of the windows. As for the rest of the house, you leave that to the architects. When the house is complete, the study is fantastic, but the other rooms are not nearly as useful. While they function well enough, they’re disconnected from the study you so lovingly designed. The house doesn’t feel like a home because you only focused on one room. It lacks the harmony you hoped for.
Similarly, when we approach a child’s education and focus solely on academic abilities, that child does not develop the complete set of skills they need to become a satisfied, successful adult. They may be able to read and write, but what about expressing emotions and taking care of their bodies? Such skills do develop naturally, to some extent. But children won’t reach their full potential without an education that addresses all areas of holistic development.
Simply put, holistic development is the social, emotional, physical, mental, and intellectual growth of a person. Taking a holistic approach to education means focusing on all aspects of a child’s growth, not just their academic advancements. Most importantly, it’s about establishing the child’s overall wellbeing.
Without wellbeing, learning becomes impossible. Imagine if your head hurt, but you had to learn about history. Or if you felt fatigued, but you had to find the square root of 529. Would you be willing to learn? Probably not. The same is true of children. They must feel healthy, safe, and cared for - only then are they able to learn effectively.
In this article, you will find the following sections:
Holistic development encompasses three processes: biological, cognitive and social-emotional.
The biological process involves bodily changes, like brain development, physical growth and weight increases. It’s how small people physically transform from children to adults.
The cognitive process includes thinking, intelligence and language skills. It’s how the youngest members of society intellectually graduate from simple to complex ways of thinking.
The social-emotional process comprises personality, emotions and interpersonal connections. It’s how individuals’ behaviors progresses from childish to mature.
The three processes influence and impact each other and none are mutually exclusive. For example, a child responds to their parent’s loving touch by feeling the sensation (biological), understanding the intention (cognitive) and reacting positively (social-emotional).
In child development, there are four sequential periods of growth:
Each period involves developmental milestones, which are common behaviors or skills typical of the age. There is, however, variation among children. Not all children will hit the same milestones at the same time because every child is unique. To best foster holistic growth, adults working with children should be aware of these milestones. We’ll share a few examples of the infancy & toddlerhood and early childhood periods with you here because that’s our area of expertise!
One more thing to note: holistic development is different from holistic learning. Development refers to the more ‘passive’ biological aspects of growth. For example, all humans without developmental challenges gradually learn to walk without being taught. Learning, on the other hand, indicates something active or intentional that a person can practice or someone else can teach them, such as learning to read. In this article, we discuss holistic development with some examples of how to encourage holistic learning.
The four interconnected areas of children’s holistic development and learning are social-emotional, physical, linguistic and cognitive development. We’ll explain what each of them encompasses, as well as milestones, examples and ways you can encourage growth in each area!
This aspect of holistic development naturally begins from the time a baby is born. They interact with and create an attachment to their caregivers, which forms the foundation for all other relationships in life. As mentioned previously, establishing a child’s wellbeing is the first step for learning. Without safety and trust, children cannot learn. You can build trust by giving children consistent routines (and being able to venture outside those routines occasionally), respect, and freedom to explore safely.
Social-emotional development includes:
If you’ve ever noticed that children of the same age vary in their social-emotional skills, that’s perfectly normal. In fact, there’s a factor that accounts for this phenomenon, and it’s called temperament. A child’s temperament affects their ability to control emotions or respond to the things around them. It explains the differences in children’s personalities, behavior styles, emotional reactions, and responses that you naturally observe as an adult.
For example, a child might be “easy,” “slow to warm up,” or “difficult.” However, no child is actually “difficult,” but the environment, including the adult who finds them difficult, simply does not match the child’s temperament type. “Goodness of fit “ describes this phenomenon, and it’s important to be aware of it. Temperament is part of what makes each child unique, and learning the characteristics of their temperament will help you understand their individuality and ways to support them.
The milestones for social-emotional development in the broader framework of holistic development include the following:
Infancy & Toddlerhood
Early childhood
There are many ways you can promote children’s social-emotional development. First and foremost, you can be an active role model of healthy social-emotional skills. Your example is extremely powerful in promoting children’s holistic development. Other ways to encourage their growth include the following:
Part of social-emotional development is learning how to work through challenging emotions. Professor Lasse Lipponen will provide some pedagogical insights in our webinar, “How to Discuss Difficult Topics with Children”, which is available as an on-demand recording!
Gross motor skills involve the use of large muscles and body parts, like the arms and legs. Running, jumping, balancing and dancing are some examples of gross motor skills in action. For a typically developing child, active movement and freedom to explore their daily environments helps them develop these skills.
Fine motor skills, on the other hand, refer to small muscle movements in parts of the body like the fingers, toes and feet. Combining the senses with movement, what we call perceptual motor skills, fall under this category. Hand-eye coordination, which builds the foundation for writing and drawing, is one such example, and tthere are many more daily activities that require these skills.
The following are some milestones of physical development. Keep in mind that physical development, like any other area of holistic development, varies with each child. Therefore, the milestones provided below are guidelines, not rules, for typical child development.
Infancy & Toddlerhood
Early Childhood
Children grow rapidly during early childhood, which is why it’s important to let them move in a variety of ways. In the early education setting, this means giving them outlets for free movement and exploration, thereby developing gross motor skills, and providing more guided activities to help them develop fine motor skills. More examples include the following:
There are 4 main categories within this area of holistic development, namely attention, thinking, memory and learning.
Like previous milestones, the following examples of cognitive development vary with each child. If there is a cause for concern in the area of cognitive development, it is important to bring in experts like child psychologists to assess and diagnose any problems a child might have.
Infancy & Toddlerhood
Early Childhood
The traditional academic approach includes many methods to promote this area of holistic development. There are, however, a variety of ways you can playfully promote cognitive development in the early childhood education setting.
You can playfully implement STEAM learning and foster children's mathematical skills as well!
The following are some major milestones of language development in typical childhood development.
Infancy and Toddlerhood
Early Childhood
Young children have an astonishing capacity for learning language. As such, their language skills develop rapidly in this area during their first few years of life. The following are some ways to encourage this area of holistic development:
When an educational approach incorporates holistic development, it brings together all the aspects of a child’s growth. This, in turn, develops children’s transversal skills, which are a broad set of skills, work habits, character traits and knowledgeable insights. Examples include empathy and compassion, creative thinking, teamwork, problem-solving, self-expression, multi-literacy, and independence. Being able to connect seemingly disparate subjects, create innovative solutions and carry out complex projects are the results of a holistic education.
If you design a house well and keep all of the rooms in mind, it will become a warm, welcoming home. Similarly, if you educate a child fully and promote their holistic development, they will become a happy, healthy human. It’s all about recognizing the range of developmental needs and addressing each area through high-quality education and care.
Learn how to foster holistic development in the early childhood education and care setting with our HEI Schools Teacher Diploma program. Available to any educator or parent around the world, the course teaches you how to put these skills into practice.