Understanding your child
Notes on children, year by year, read through Western astrology, Chinese astrology, and numerology. Written by the Firstclue team.
Series
Year by Year
What changes at each age, read through the three systems your child was born into.
Your Newborn: The Year Before You Know Who They Are
You will spend the first year of your child's life looking at them and wondering. The chart they were born into is the only thing that knows them already. It can't tell you what they will do tomorrow, but it can tell you who they are becoming.
10 min read
Your 1-Year-Old: The Year They Get a Body That Listens
At zero, the temperament was there but the body couldn't do anything about it. At one, the body finally listens. They walk, they reach, they refuse. The first year was about who they were becoming. The second year is about who they're becoming in a body that can finally act.
10 min read
Your 2-Year-Old: The Year They Become Ungovernable
Two isn't terrible. Two is the first time your child has language, will, and the discovery that they can refuse you. The shape of how they refuse is the first real glimpse of who they will be.
10 min read
Your 3-Year-Old: The Year They Become Someone
Two was about realizing they have a will. Three is about realizing they have a self. Most of what looks like defiance this year is something else entirely.
9 min read
Your 4-Year-Old: The Year Everything Gets Bigger
Three is about discovering they were a separate person from you. Four is about discovering there are other people: a whole social world with rules, hierarchies, allies, and enemies.
9 min read
Your 5-Year-Old: The Year They Meet the World
Five is the year your child leaves home for the first time, in a real way. They get evaluated, ranked, and described by strangers. The institutions they enter don't see them the way you do.
9 min read
Your 6-Year-Old: The Year Their Preferences Become Theirs
Five was the year they entered the world. Six is the year they start having opinions about it. The food they used to love, the clothes they used to wear, the friend they used to play with, all of it is suddenly up for review.
10 min read
Your 7-Year-Old: The Year They Start Judging Themselves
Six was the last year of pure childhood. At seven, an inner critic arrives, the bedroom door starts closing, and the child who was easy a year ago suddenly isn't. Most of what looks like a regression is actually a developmental leap.
10 min read
Your 8-Year-Old: The Year They Become Someone With a Worldview
Seven was the year the inner critic arrived. By eight, it has settled in and started building something. Your child now has opinions about how the world works, who deserves what, and where they fit. The opinions are partial. They are real.
10 min read
Your 9-Year-Old: The Year They Become a Private Person
Eight was the year they had a worldview. Nine is the year they stop sharing it. The full interior arrives this year: the thoughts they will never tell you, the friends who matter more than you do, the inner life that is finally theirs.
10 min read
Your 10-Year-Old: The Year They Start Constructing Who Others See
Nine was the year they had a private interior. Ten is the year they start building the exterior. The clothes that announce something. The room rearranged. The friends who tell other people who they are. The performance of self begins this year.
10 min read