Then-and-Now Me — The Baby Photo Timeline

Lay out a handful of photos (or keepsakes) of the child from baby to today and build a simple timeline of what they couldn’t do then and can do now. Five-year-olds judge themselves mainly against their own younger selves, and this gives them the evidence in pictures.

  1. Gather four or five items spanning the child’s life — a newborn photo, a first-steps or first-birthday photo, one from around age three, one from this year. A baby sock, a first scribble, or an outgrown T-shirt work just as well as photos.
  2. Let the child put them in order, youngest to oldest, along a strip of tape on the floor or a length of string. Help only if asked. “How can you tell that one’s older?”
  3. Tell the “couldn’t yet” story for each one. “Here you couldn’t hold your own head up — we held it for you.” “Here you could walk, but only if you held the sofa.” Keep it warm and funny, never mocking.
  4. Ask the “now” question. At each photo: “And what can you do now that this baby couldn’t?” Let the list run — walk, talk, jump, pour juice, tell jokes, ride a scooter, comfort a friend.
  5. Do the proof. Hold the baby sock against today’s foot. Put the first scribble beside this week’s drawing. Stand back-to-back with the height mark from last year. Let the child draw the conclusion themselves.
  6. Add the empty frame. Put a blank card at the far end of the line: “This is you when you’re seven. What do you think that kid will be able to do?” Draw or write their answer on it.
  7. Finish with what hasn’t changed. “Some things were you right from the start — you always loved water, and you’ve always had that laugh.” Growth and sameness together make a self.

Variation: no baby photos to hand? Do a “this year” version with drawings or name-writing from last autumn and from now. Or tell it as a spoken bedtime story — “Once there was a baby who couldn’t even roll over…” — and let the child supply every “but now…”

Requirements

  • Space: About 2 meters of floor, table, or sofa
  • Surface: Any flat surface for laying out the line
  • Materials: 4–5 photos (printed or on a phone) or keepsakes from different ages; masking tape or string; a blank card and a pen
  • Participants: 1 child + 1 adult who knows the child's early years; grandparents make excellent co-narrators
  • Supervision: Moderate — the adult supplies the stories the child cannot remember

Rationale & Objective

Asked how good they are at something, young children rarely compare themselves with classmates; they compare themselves with who they used to be — “I couldn’t do it when I was little, and now I can” — and Harter (2012) points out that because skills grow so fast at this age, these temporal comparisons are almost always flattering and help sustain the confident self-view that keeps children attempting new things. The timeline feeds that natural mechanism with concrete evidence. It also does something for identity. Conversations in which a parent richly retells the child’s own past — elaborative reminiscing — are linked to more detailed autobiographical memory and a more coherent sense of self in the preschool years (Fivush, Haden & Reese, 2006), and a child cannot remember their first two years without someone to tell them. Naming what has stayed the same alongside what has changed supports the understanding that I am one continuous person who grows, which underlies the Head Start ELOF goal of recognising oneself as a unique individual. The “empty frame” extends the line forward: seeing one’s own record of growth is the most direct evidence a child can have that today’s “can’t” is temporary — Bandura’s (1997) mastery experience, read back from the family album.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: enjoys the photos but may not be sure the baby is really them; orders the pictures with help; names one obvious difference (“I was small”)
  • Developing: orders three or four items correctly; names several things they can do now that they couldn’t before; asks for the baby stories again
  • Proficient: describes their own growth in their own words (“I used to need the stabilisers and now I don’t”); says with pride what they have learned this year; suggests something for the age-seven card
  • Advanced: explains how a skill arrived (“I kept falling off and then I got it”); names things about themselves that have stayed the same; spontaneously uses “when I was little I couldn’t…” to reassure themselves or a younger child about something hard

Safety Notes

  • Handle irreplaceable prints and keepsakes yourself or use copies; keep small keepsakes (hospital bracelets, first teeth) away from younger siblings
  • Keep the baby stories affectionate — “you couldn’t do it yet” — never “you were such a difficult baby”; children take these stories as facts about who they are
  • For children who were adopted, fostered, born prematurely, or who had a hard start, early photos and stories may be missing or painful; begin the line from the earliest moment you can tell warmly, and follow the child’s lead about questions
  • A child who has recently regressed in a skill (toileting, sleep, speech) after a new sibling, a move, or an illness may feel the comparison as criticism; leave that skill out
  • Avoid comparing the child’s timeline with a sibling’s (“your sister walked earlier”)

Hints

  • Playfulness: act out each stage — lie on the floor and be the baby who can only wave their arms, wobble like a new walker, then let the child show off the “now” version at full speed
  • Sustain interest: make it a birthday or new-school-year tradition and add one new photo and one new “now I can” each time; keep the age-seven card to open later
  • Common mistake: the adult does all the telling and it turns into a slideshow. Pause after every photo and wait for the child’s “now I can…” — that sentence is the point of the exercise
  • Limited space: scroll through four photos on a phone on the sofa, or do the no-materials bedtime story version
  • Cross-domain: ordering photos builds sequencing and time words (before, after, when I was two); comparing sock and foot is measurement; retelling builds narrative language and memory; talking about how a baby is cared for builds empathy
  • Progression: adult orders and narrates → child orders the photos and supplies the “now I can” → child tells the growth story themselves → child predicts their future self and names one thing they want to learn next

Sources

  • Harter, S. (2012). The Construction of the Self: Developmental and Sociocultural Foundations (2nd ed.). Guilford Press — temporal comparison and positive self-evaluation in early childhood
  • Fivush, R., Haden, C. A. & Reese, E. (2006). “Elaborating on elaborations: Role of maternal reminiscing style in cognitive and socioemotional development.” Child Development, 77(6), 1568–1588
  • Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W. H. Freeman
  • Head Start ELOF — Sense of Identity and Belonging (P-SE 9: recognises self as a unique individual; P-SE 10: expresses confidence in own skills)
  • Australian EYLF — Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
  • UK EYFS — Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Managing Self; building a positive sense of self)