The Age of Independence;
a One Year Old Child

When the baby turns one year old, he or she is completely different from the fragile and defenseless baby you gave birth to twelve months ago. Now your child is able to communicate with the world around him, he is probably already walking and you already know his likes and dislikes. At this age you will need to pay double attention to safety as at this age children are intrepid, curious and have more energy than athletes do: they go up, down, climb, crawl, walk, put things in their mouths, get bored, frustrated, impatient etc, and because of this you need to be imaginative to keep an equilibrium between the states of stimulation and the relaxed ones. Independence is a long process and a continuous one that begins in the moment the baby is born and culminates at around three years of age, although this does not mean that all children reach this goal at the same time. Becoming independent means that the child becomes conscious of his or her own identity, being able to differentiate between “me” and “not me”.