Early child development can be a stressful experience for parents, because everyone knows how important getting a great start to your education is. For children nothing is more important with this issue than reading, writing and basic math skills, and as parents this is entirely your responsibility for the first few years of your child’s life, before you start getting help from school.

It can be very worrying interacting with other parents and drawing a comparison of skills in these subjects, but it is worth remembering that every child is different and that they all develop at different rates and in different ways. You may well find that your child is learning some of these skills more slowly than other children, but this doesn’t mean that they won’t make a breakthrough at some point and it all becomes easier for them. The important thing is that you keep on trying to teach them these skills, and even when they are older you should still try to reinforce good habits like reading.