News — coordination

Motor skills are the movements that we make, anything from writing or painting to throwing a ball or walking.  When we talk about gross motor skills, we are usually talking about the more complex skills that include underlying skills of balance and coordination. These are the skills we see we often times see at the playground; like jumping, running, sliding, hopping, and climbing. Whereas, fine motor skills have to do with our fingers and this usually coordinates with our eyes (drawing, sewing, surgery, cutting with scissors, bow and arrow, fishing, etc).

 

When we evaluate a child at an older age, we would look to see how well the child is walking, jumping, running and catching a ball. We might look at how well the child uses his dominant arm and leg compared to the non-dominant arm and leg. Older children should have a clear preference for their right or left arm as well as a clear preference for their right or left leg.

                                                                                       

Fine and gross motor skills are enhanced at all ages by encouraging your child to move. At a young age a therapist  can help you determine how to support your child and encourage them to increased freedom of movement. At an older age, encouraging movement can not only be fun but it can be accomplished through games.  Balance boards are a great device to introduce to children at any age to help with balance, coordination, fine and gross motor skills.

When we experience pleasure, our brains release a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Our brains are dopamine junkies.  When kids do yoga, the body sends a positive message to the brain and viola, kids are doing something that is fun and healthy....yoga.

If I knew then, what I know now.....I would have started yoga as a child. Sure, I did "Happy Baby" pose as a baby, and "Downward Dog" felt right when I was learning to crawl, but after that, yoga disappeared in my life and didn't resurface until I was an adult. Thank goodness it did, and can you imagine if yoga had been in our life as a child? If you don't know already, let me just remind you of the amazing benefits of yoga for kids of all ages.

Physical Benefits: Yoga stretches and strengthens your muscles. It makes your spine and heart stronger, gives you more energy, and helps you breathe deeply. For example, while doing snake pose, cat pose, and cow pose, children massage their bellies and strengthen their spines. Yoga improves balance and concentration, keeps your body flexible, and can even help with headaches, belly aches, indigestion, and gas. Yoga will enhance any other sport or activity, or it can be done by itself. Through the yoga moves, children learn about their bodies-what works, what feels funny, strengths and weaknesses. This body awareness will help them in all stages and ages of their lives. Children’s bodies are growing, and it’s important to understand why things work or don’t work. For example, when a child’s legs are growing faster than the rest of their body, they may not be as flexible. This is o.k. and yoga is great place to recognize it and then talk about it with the instructor and their peers.

Social-Emotional Growth: Yoga builds confidence through rewarding, immediate and long term challenges in a non-competitive environment. Poses such as warrior I, II, and III challenge the children to maintain balance in a sequence. These poses improve posture, which improves self-esteem.   Partner yoga allows children to interact with each other in a positive, fun way. When yoga games are played, children learn to be honest with themselves and others. Teamwork and cooperation are woven into yoga in a positive setting. Children learn to understand the importance of unity and connection, as well as appreciate the differences amongst each other. Yoga inspires children to be kind, compassionate, empathetic, loving, and understanding of themselves and others.

Spiritual Growth: Yoga is a way of life. It cultivates a peaceful, relaxed state of body and mind and encourages children to be aware of the natural world and the important role that they play in today's society. Many of the moves can be related to animals or objects found on earth. During these moments, children connect with these animals and put themselves in the shoes of the animal (have you ever seen animals wearing shoes?) Yoga teaches us to be aware of the present moment, be engaged, focused, and enjoy what life has to offer. As the saying goes: "Yesterday was history, tomorrow is the future, but today is a gift, and that's why we call it the present."

Cognitive Growth: To be successful, it is essential to have good executive function. Executive function helps us connect experiences with actions. We need these mental processes to help us perform activities, plan, organize, pay attention, self-monitor, set goals, manage time and space, and remember details. Yoga requires a lot of focus, especially when a child listens to others or tells a story, while demonstrating a pose. Poses such as eagle pose or tree pose also require great focus and determination. All of these are tools for stress-management.

Intellectual Growth: Yoga teaches discipline and responsibility. Children learn and discuss healthy life-styles and habits. In the beginning of a yoga class, children are encouraged to share their lives and passions with each other. Each child learns to have realistic views on his or her abilities and learns how to control certain aspects of his or her environment.

Creative Growth: During yoga, children inspire each other with their imagination. Yoga poses can be given different names and stories and can be told in different sequences, using a variety of animals, objects, or other characters. There are opportunities to express creativity through storytelling, body movements, and art.

 

 

 

More and more these days, we're talking about balance. Not just balance in our lives, such as how much T.V. are we watching versus how much time are we reading-but the balance system in our bodies.  Yes, just like there's a circulatory system, nervous system, respiratory system, and other important systems in our bodies;  there is a balance system, too.  It's called the vestibular system.  This system is just as important as all the rest, though we hadn't been talking about it much, because we're just now finding out how important it truly is.

Balance is a multi-sensory activity. 

Balance requires the senses in the body (such as sense of sight and touch) to work together with our muscular and skeletal systems.  It's about coordination and communication within our body.  This whole system works together like a team to get things done.  All of the sports that we do require balance.  Reading, writing, walking, putting a puzzle together, and almost any active thing you can think of requires the balance system to be working.  And the more you use it, the stronger the connections that are made. 

The old saying "Use it or lose it" was probably written about balance, but we weren't catching on. Now we are.

As you know, children are very sensory oriented.  They learn about their world through their senses, which develops their vestibular systems.  The process of the vestibular development extends almost into puberty, and that's why it's so important to allow children to explore, play, and get moving. Children spend more and more time these days sitting, rather than moving.  They start by sitting in a car seat as an infant (I'm not saying we should ditch car seats, because they save lives), sitting in a bouncy chair when they are able to crawl around, sitting in strollers as toddlers, and then sitting around watching TV or playing on the computer. What could we help them do besides sit? 

"Can you hop on one foot all the way to me?"  "Let me show you how to skip."  "What animal stands on one leg while resting? Can you do that?" (by the way, the flamingo stands on one leg while resting)

 There are ample opportunities to help children improve their developmental skills through balance activities.  Kids can play games like hopscotch, jump-rope, and Red Rover.  Wheel-barrel races and riding bikes are also great.  Yoga, Qi Gong, climbing, and gymnastics are all great activities.  You can also use various balancing products, such as balance balls, balance boards, balance bikes, etc.

Children with healthy balance systems can thrive and those with challenges or weaknesses in these areas can begin to improve, often dramatically. 

It's never too late to get moving.  And to know that all of the balance activities that we do can help us in other areas in life, is huge.  Some of the problems that we are facing today such as lack of coordination, struggles with comprehension, and attention can improve by improving our balance. 

When we talk about balance, we often mention the word proprioception.  In a nutshell, proprioception is your body and mind communicating with your muscles, which allows the body to remain stable.  This is an important task when you are throwing a ball to your neighbor, standing on one foot at the zoo while looking at flamingos, playing tennis in a community tennis match, getting into your favorite celebrity's car, riding a bike in front of a school, sitting in a chair at restaurant, writing a letter to an old friend from grade school,  or just about anything you decide to do today.  And again, the more you use it, the less likely you are to lose it.

Balance is the key to injury prevention and wellness at any age.  Top athletes recognize that balance training helps them perform better in their sports.  By training to develop greater balance, you will recognize improvements in posture, coordination, and athletic skill.  This will in turn result in greater stability, strength, and independence.