Why is it important to support your child with a wide variety of ‘movement vocabulary’?
One of my clients’ mothers told me, “Oh my son can sit without using his hands!” in a tone of excitement. When I asked, “Could he get into or out of sitting by himself?”, lowering the tone of her voice, she said, “No.”
This is a very common challenge that the children brought to my clinic have faced. They are essentially ‘stuck’ in sitting. Often times in conventional therapy, children are placed in sitting long before they have developed the necessary trunk control. Over time and with sufficient practice, many of these children do learn to sit independently but often at the expense of stiffening the muscles in their backs, arms and legs.
When children learn to sit this way, they miss out on the experience of how it feels to push themselves up with their arms and bear weight with their hips in different configurations. They did not have the opportunity to figure out for themselves and practise the various components of ‘movement vocabulary’ and subsequently, develop motor planning that are crucial for transitioning from one position to another.
As parents and therapists, it is very important for us to understand the ‘movement vocabulary’ that is necessary for our children to achieve independent sitting, versus just teaching our children to maintain a static sitting (or standing) posture. Nature intends that infants and young children go through the different developmental stages for very good reasons. The practice in one stage of development prepares our children for their advancement to the next stage.
A better way to help children with developmental challenges is to support them with experiencing as large a number of ‘movement vocabulary’ as possible so that they will have the necessary kinaesthetic inputs to inform their nervous system of the infinite number of movement possibilities.
Each child will learn to put these ‘movement vocabulary’ together in their own unique way. This process of development enables us to become the unique individuals that we are.
3 PRACTICAL TOOLS FOR YOU TO EXPLORE
Leave babies on their backs
Do not be tempted to give babies or young infants tummy time before they have a significant amount of head control when lying on their backs. This includes the ability to turn their head to look from side to side, to look towards their chest and to explore the space above their head.
Infants need a lot of practice wriggling on their backs to exercise their trunk muscles before they will be strong enough to lift and hold their heads up when lying on their tummy.
Find stability in side lying
Lying on the side is half way between lying on the back and rolling onto the tummy. This is a position often missed in the movement repertoire of our children with special challenges. Can your child find stability and comfort lying on their side? If not, they are missing a very important ‘movement vocabulary’ which will help them to learn to roll over.
Cultivate familiarity by playing with your child on their side. If your child is already comfortable playing on their side, use toys to encourage them to lift their head up to look around. This practise helps improve your child’s head and trunk control and will support their efforts to learn to sit up by themselves.
Moving between positions
If your child is able to sit independently but cannot get out of sitting yet, focus on teaching your child how to ‘fall’ gently from sitting onto their tummy and to their side. Conversely, teach your child how to get into sitting from lying by rolling your child onto their side or tummy. Then gently lift your child up holding on.to either side of their rib cage, teaching them to push with both arms into sitting.
If your child can stand with support, instead of putting the focus on walking, encourage your child to pull themselves up from the floor to stand, then lower themselves to the floor. In the process, they will strengthen the dynamic movement of pushing with their legs and develop the hip and knee control needed for upright balance and walking.
When you support your child with their ability to problem solve around all these movement transitions, you are essentially teaching your child how to walk. It might surprise you but the movement vocabularies necessary for transitional movements are also essential for maintaining balance while standing or walking.
You will be supporting your child towards independent walking.
QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO PONDER:
- What practices am I doing now to support and connect with my own body?
- How can I increase my own ‘movement vocabulary’?
- When was the last time I navigated life changes? Did I feel stuck? Or did I move through with ease?
Now it’s up to you to engage yourself in this process.
