Things You Can Do to Promote Your Child’s Motor Skills

As the parent of a young child you may be wondering what you can do to help foster the development of motor skills. Motor skills are extremely important building blocks for a number of academic skills that your child will need when entering school. There are a lot of activities that parents can do with their child to help enhance their fine and gross motor skills. Many people don’t realize how these skills can affect a child. The development of motor skills allows them to perform better in other more academic and physical ways. Basically motor skills are divided into two groups: fine and gross. Fine motor skills are those skills which involve the manipulation of the hands and fingers in conjunction with vision (also known as hand-eye coordination). Gross motor skills are those that involve the use of any large muscle group. In the early years of childhood development having the right activities for your child can help them develop and hone their motor skills. Here are some things parents can do to help promote the development of motor skills.

· Fine motor skill-These are the skills that allow you to develop the ability to do such things as write and manipulate small objects. Try these simple activities to help your children along the way.

Coloring is a building block of fine motor skills.

1. Coloring is perhaps one of the easiest ways to help your child develop their fine motor skills. Coloring books have a variety of levels from the simplest shapes to far more complicated pictures. You can have your child use crayons, markers, colored pencils or even chalk. For some freehand coloring try putting up paper on a small easel, on the wall or even on a door to give your child a new perspective.

2. Painting. Try alternating between large, stubby brushes and smaller, finer brushes. The smaller the brush is, the more control the child will need over their hands. Also try getting your kids to do some painting with cotton swabs. This affords some really fine work and allows them to develop their pincer grip which is needed for learning how to write. Have your kids try finger-painting, stamping and even sidewalk painting for some added variety.

3. Puzzles-For younger children; it may work best to start them off with large peg puzzles. These are puzzles that have a little knob sticking out of each puzzle piece. This allows them to gain more control over their finger movement. For starter puzzles you can buy them with very large knobs that require a full fisted grip then you can move onto the puzzles that require a thumb and forefinger grip (pincer grip).

· Gross Motor Skills-These are the big motor skills; i.e. running, jumping and hopping etc. They require balance and coordination. To help develop these try some of these activities-

1. Running. Create a game that requires moving quickly. This is great for encouraging the development of gross motor coordination.

2. Climbing. Take them to the park and let them climb all over the jungle gyms. Climbing seems to be an innate characteristic of children. You may have noticed it when they started climbing onto the coffee table as a toddler! Each time they try, they will get a little better because they are developing those important gross motor muscles.

3. Hopping. Set up a game of hopscotch. All that hopping about is really about developing some balance.

4. Encourage ball play. Kicking, rolling and throwing are some great ways to encourage gross motor development and you will not need anything more that a ball and a little bit of room. Smaller balls require a little finer control but you should aim to get a ball that can be easily picked up. A very large ball for a younger child can be difficult to manipulate and get very frustrating, very fast.