Are you seeing only the tip of the iceberg?
Often times parents brought their children to me with a focused issue.
For one child, it could be walking on their toes. For another, it could be their child holding one hand in a fist. The list goes on.
What these parents are seeing could just be the tip of the iceberg. Upon further examination, more issues can surface.
With the sensitivity I have developed in my hands, tensions are often detected in other parts of the child’s body. The movement at the ankles could be limited. The muscles of the legs could be tight. The hip joints might not be moving freely. The spine could be bent toward one side.
As a therapist, if I only focused on what I see, it would make sense to prescribe AFOs (ankle-foot orthosis) to correct the foot position or hand splints to prevent tightness and possible deformity.
However, pause for a moment and ask yourself these questions:
- What is behind these stiffness that I am seeing?
- Why is a certain part of my child’s body ‘stiff’?
- Could this stiffness be part of other underlying challenges?
Please keep this in mind, the human body is a unified organism with many parts and systems working in harmony with each other!
So if you were ever told that something is wrong with your child with regard to stiffness in certain body parts, I would encourage you to look deeper, beneath the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
To be continued…
