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From: debbiem@rruxe.UUCP (D. McBurnett)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Walking before they crawl?
Message-ID: <254@rruxe.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-May-85 18:01:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: rruxe.254
Posted: Fri May  3 18:01:13 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 7-May-85 05:46:12 EDT
References: <1026@ihuxn.UUCP>, <174@analog.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 33


I had a similar experience with my son.  He wasn't much interested
in crawling at any age.  When he was 5 and a half months old, he
sat up by himself.  The NEXT DAY, he pulled himself up to standing
and from that point starting cruising along the furniture.  We were
afraid this might be too early, and did not encourage him, but he
had his mind made up that walking was where it was at.  By the
time he was eight months old he was walking on his own with no
difficulty (actually protesting against being carried or sitting
in a stroller, most of the time).

He is now almost four years old and doesn't exhibit any kind of
motor deficiencies as a result of not crawling.  Also, he is
starting to learn to read (we have not pushed this, either, but
when he asks what signs and such say, we do try to get him to "sound
it out" to get him to think instead of just telling him, and because
he has an excellent memory, once a word is covered, he generally
recognizes it when he sees it again).  What with the fairly small
amount of "teaching" we do along these lines, plus what he sees on
"Sesame Street", he has little difficulty in picking up new (though
short and easy) words, at his own learning pace.  So not crawling
doesn't seem to have affected him particularly in this area either.

I tend to agree with the philosophy of letting kids "go at their own
pace".  If they want to do something and it doesn't appear harmful,
by all means help them along, but don't push.  Other than that, I'm
not too big on child-raising "theories" -- every kid is different,
and what's good for one is not right for another.  You need to
tailor your approach to the individual child.

Debbie McBurnett
rruxe!debbiem