How to support your child with learning good movement habits?
Movements are learned through sensory feedback loops. Movements that feel pleasurable or novel are more likely to be repeated spontaneously and hence learned much faster. More often than not, these movements also feel effortless to your child.
A healthy developing nervous system needs a large variety of sensory-motor information which necessitates experimentation with movements that might seem aimless, or could appear to be errors or mistakes.
These vast numbers of movement experiences allow your child’s nervous system to pick and choose what works best, supporting them to form well co-ordinated actions in the process, for example rolling over and finding balance in sitting and standing.
When it comes to supporting our children’s physical abilities in the long run, it would be far more effective if we as parents could start by supporting our children to develop the good habit of simply ‘Being Curious’.
Sounds simple right?
Great, because this is the single most important tool that motivates you child to keep moving!
It is with this process of spontaneous movement fueled by curiosity that your child begins to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It provides your child’s brain with the opportunity to achieve purposeful and well co-ordinated movements over time.
You can support your child with developing:
- Curiosity for themselves through discovering the different parts of their body.
- Curiosity towards movement through exploring different ways to move.
- Curiosity in their environment through enrichment with toys, colours and textures.
At home, you can create a safe environment where your child can have fun and explore safely, thereby supporting them in furthering their curiosity.
Play with your child like you would for typically developing kids. In fact, playing and having fun is the best way to motivate your child to be physically active.
Over time, you will begin to see results. It might seem slow at first, as if your child is moving ineffectively or not achieving what they intent to do.
Your child might start and stop what they are doing halfway through it and then move onto something else. At times, it might appear as though they are struggling or giving up.
But this is exactly how a healthy nervous system LEARNS.
The most important point here is that as parents, you continue to provide the environment that enriches your child’s learning.
You can help by making things easier for your child when the task becomes too difficult. However, it is also important to pause, observe and wait for your child to ask for help.
When you provide the space for your child to figure things out for themselves, you are helping them to develop motor planning and problem solving skills!
Just because your child has specific challenges doesn’t mean that they need to work really hard or to be ‘spoon-fed’ specific movements in order to progress with their motor skills.
Working really hard causes your child to strain themselves. Repeatedly doing so could result in your child developing ‘faulty’ movement habits which could interfere with their natural ability to develop coordinated actions.
Being the unique individual that your child is, your child needs the support of healthy movement habits so that they can learn to move in ways that work for them!
As parents and therapists when we help our children to develop healthy habits, we are essentially supporting their future development in many positive ways.
What could you explore with your child today?
