Do Early Childhood Milestones Predict How Your Kid Turns Out Later?
I’m sitting at my kitchen table, cold coffee sweating next to a stack of tattered baby memory books I pulled from the attic last night. I’m packing a box for my oldest daughter Lila’s college orientation, and I thought she might want the little handprint art and the sticker chart from potty training. Tucked in the front of Lila’s book is the wrinkled milestone checklist from her 12-month pediatrician visit, the nurse’s blue pen slashing neat checkmarks next to every box: walks unassisted, says 5+ words, uses a cup independently. The doctor scribbled in the margin at the bottom: “Advanced development for age.”
Next to it is Sam’s, my son’s 12-month checklist, from three years later. Half the same boxes have faint question marks instead of checkmarks. Walks unassisted? No, still crawling, pulls up to stand. Says 5+ words? Says “mama” and “dog,” that’s it. The note here says: “Follow up in 3 months, monitor language delay.”
I slept so bad those three months. I stayed up scrolling parenting forums at 1 a.m., comparing Sam to every other 1-year-old in my mom group. At a family barbecue that summer, my great-aunt leaned over to me while Sam was pulling all the napkins out of the holder and said, “Lila was talking in full sentences at that age, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t you be worried?” I nodded and smiled, but I went to the bathroom and cried afterward, convinced I’d done something wrong, that I’d missed a window to help him.
He got evaluated, turned out everything was fine. He just wasn’t interested in talking yet. He was too busy figuring out how to stack blocks 10 high, how to unlock the front door, how to sort my sock drawer by color. When he finally started talking, around 2 and a half, he didn’t just do single words—he did full sentences, about why the sky was blue, why the dog liked that particular chew toy, why broccoli was a waste of plate space.
Now Lila’s 18, and she’s heading to community college to study studio art. She was never the kid who rushed through school or jumped at every advanced placement. In elementary school, I kept pushing her to do extra homework, to join the gifted program, because all the early milestones said she was “advanced.” She’d sit at the kitchen table and draw horses in the margins of her math worksheets instead of finishing the problems, and I’d get frustrated, remind her how smart she was supposed to be. It took me until 8th grade to realize she just didn’t care about rushing through school. She cares about spending 3 hours getting the shading right on a portrait, about working at the coffee shop downtown after school because she likes talking to the regulars. She’s taking her time, and that’s fine.
Sam’s 15 now, and he’s the one who stays up late researching Supreme Court cases, who leads his high school debate team, who aces every AP exam he takes, who can argue with his dad about climate policy for an hour without getting flustered. Last month I sat in the audience at his regional debate tournament, watching him give a 12-minute speech without notes, and I thought about that 1-year-old who couldn’t say five words, about the question marks on that checklist, about how scared I was back then.
The thing I’ve learned, that I wish someone had told me back when I was panicking over those checkmarks, is that milestones aren’t blueprints. They’re just mile markers for that specific moment on the road. They tell you where a kid is right now, not where they’ll end up.
I don’t mean milestones are useless. If your 18-month-old isn’t making eye contact or pointing to show you things, that’s a red flag worth checking out. But if your 12-month-old is still crawling and all the other kids in your mom group are walking, that’s almost never a sign they’ll be behind forever. It just means they’re working on something else right now.
There are a few small things I tell new parents who ask me about this now, that don’t take any extra work or money. First, when you’re looking at your milestone checklist, don’t just note what your kid hasn’t done yet. Write down what they are doing. When Sam wasn’t talking, I should have written down that he could do a 24-piece puzzle at 18 months, that he could open any jar in the pantry, that he remembered where every single one of his toys was stored. That told me way more about how his brain worked than the fact he wasn’t saying words yet. Second, if someone comments on your kid being “late” to hit a milestone, you don’t have to defend yourself or your kid. Just say “they’re moving at their own pace” and change the subject. You don’t owe anyone an explanation, and letting random comments spin you into panic isn’t worth it. Third, don’t practice milestones just to check them off early. I see so many parents doing daily walking practice with their 9-month-old, or flashcards for 1-year-olds, just to get that checkmark. If your kid likes it, fine. But if they’d rather sit and play with dirt than practice walking, let them. They’re learning something that matters just as much.
I tucked both checkmarks back into the memory books this morning. I’m bringing Lila’s book with me to orientation, and Sam’s will go back up in the attic for another few years. I still don’t know what Lila will do after college, or if Sam will actually go to law school like he says he will now. The checkmarks and question marks from when they were tiny didn’t tell me anything about that. All they told me was that they were always growing, just on their own schedule.
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