To think no one helped develop our fine motor skills and we all turned out fine?

[Maybeitstime2021]

Just had a post on my FB with activities to do with your child to develop their fine motor skills before starting school in September, why is this a thing? I’m pretty sure we all learned to do our coats up and hold a pencil ok when we were kids without these activities?

Throughout human history children would have developed these skills by playing all day long outdoors. Probably until adolescence.

I just don't think this is true. In most societies throughout human history children have actually been expected to accompany parents and learn how to do things as they go. Lots of this might have been mimicking and essentially play, but the physically skilled nature of the tasks being attempted would have had value in developing fine & gross motor skills. Imagine a child trying to copy a parent:

• making a clay pot or a mud brick
• helping to shell peas
• grinding grain with a mortar
• picking berries or cracking nuts
• cutting leather pieces for shoes
• plaiting rope or twine
• even just helping to carry tools

Compare that to the things a child might imitate a modern parent doing around the home and there would probably be a lot of screen time & pressing buttons and not a lot of things requiring manual dexterity and hand strength.

Believe me when I say there’s nothing worse than at age 12 having to get your teacher to dress you after swimming lessons, or having to ask your GP to help you button your coat at 25 - both situations I’ve been in - ANY intervention early enough has to be a good thing .

Gardenista

Exactly this.

It's not too late though. When I realised this with my son I took a step back and went a bit low tech. Back to the wax crayons and the plasticine, and actually it's making a noticeable difference already.

When I started work as a TA in YrR , twenty years ago, hardly any children needed help to tie their shoelaces , though to be fair , Velcro had been invented.
Now , most children need help with their laces ( on PE days,) as they come to school with trainers.
Cannot get over how many children now, cannot hold a pencil or use scissors.

Don't get me started on their cutlery skills.

Much of it is to do with under developed gross motor skills, as these need to develop first.
I had training on this some years ago.
Trainer said that most fine motor skills problems stem from poor gross motor skills from birth.
Babies are put into constricting car seats that are then placed into supermarket trollies.
Baby falls asleep, baby stays in that position. Baby's seat is taken indoors and baby stays there while food is out away.
Baby can spend hours in that seat , bar changing. Baby is then taken to, say, a friend's or grandparents and still left in that seat.

Also, babies are now placed on their backs which inhibits the initial crawling motion that , traditionally helped the 'cross motion' crawling stage.

I do wonder how much of a problem it would be for kids with dyspraxia or other challenges if we didn't have such stringent expectations around what is 'normal'.

All behaviour is a spectrum and you could argue that people aren't 'disabled' by their skillset unless we've all previously agreed what 'able' means.

I do think a less homogenised approach to achievement and a greater embracing of all sorts of ability might help lots and lots of children.

I also recognise that that is not how things are and so correctly identifying additional needs and putting in support where necessary is critical.

Droopyclematis

So true. I remember learning to tie laces in reception, but family kids are only learning by age 7 or 8 now.

I'm 34 and I'm sure I was older than reception when I learned to tie my laces, though perhaps I was unusually slow at it?!

I saw that Facebook post and took a screenshot!

My 4yo is going to school in Sept and is a bit 'behind' on his fine motor skills. I notice some things at home and preschool had picked up on it too.

Lots on here have mentioned technology and tablets as a reason kids may be behind on fine motor. That is not true here, ds uses tech like that maybe once or twice a month, if that.

I think it's just him. Preschool have said that fine motor comes from gross motor. He is a very slight boy compared to his peers, he struggles for strength to swim and push pedals on a bike. His fine motor I had noticed he used a palm grip on a pen, no tripod grip yet.

So yes, I will be spending the summer sneaking things in, dough discos all the way, games with pegs, whatever. He'll think its a game. I don't want him to have his confidence knocked if he struggles with things in Sept. He already thinks he can't do things like drawing.

There will be children who haven't developed those skills before starting school. They'll be unable to do buttons or zips or do up their shoes.

It's just another way of saying 'get your kids to do lots of activities that use their hands' and practise those essential skills. Some parents will let their kids play on screens and nothing else.

I wouldn't take it seriously. Most parents have got it right.

@Gardenista

Also agree in the uk we try to get children to write too young.

Ridiculously young. I am all for the kindergarten stage being introduced. Let them start formal education aged 7 🤷

I wish it had been a thing when I was young. Just not something my mother thought to do. (And I’m from a “omfortable middle class background”)
It took a Scandinavian friend to comment on my motor skills when I was in my 20s. I had never heard the expression. Apparently this is something the Scandinavians have been thinking for years.
I have been doing stuff with beads teaching children to tie shoelaces since young, but never done for me. And I didn’t turn out fine.

I find these ideas helpful and the activities can be calming and help with concentration. The way it’s “packaged” can seem pretentious but really many parents just want fun things for their kids to try

@obviousanonymous

Believe me when I say there’s nothing worse than at age 12 having to get your teacher to dress you after swimming lessons, or having to ask your GP to help you button your coat at 25 - both situations I’ve been in - ANY intervention early enough has to be a good thing .

I've sent you a pm, obvious.

A family friend is a surgeon and says he has noticed a big decline in medical students' abilities when it comes to the kind of extreme fine motor skills required in surgery. So it's not just 5 year olds.

It’s not the ideas themselves it’s that no one told our parents to do it, grandparents etc to do it, perhaps I’m underestimating the impact that screens have.

Some research here shows the negative impact of screens. Our parents/grandparents didn't have to be told because a lot of what we did as children pre-screens by developed our fine motor skills by default. So, for example, collecting stones, making daisy chains, etc. It was called playing. We also ate as a family and our parents taught us table manners and how to use cutlery, which also happened to develop fine motor skills.

Basically, life did the job without it having to be named. Today, life doesn't always do the job so it has to be called out and named.

@Orangeinmybluelightcup

I saw that Facebook post and took a screenshot!

My 4yo is going to school in Sept and is a bit 'behind' on his fine motor skills. I notice some things at home and preschool had picked up on it too.

Lots on here have mentioned technology and tablets as a reason kids may be behind on fine motor. That is not true here, ds uses tech like that maybe once or twice a month, if that.

I think it's just him. Preschool have said that fine motor comes from gross motor. He is a very slight boy compared to his peers, he struggles for strength to swim and push pedals on a bike. His fine motor I had noticed he used a palm grip on a pen, no tripod grip yet.

So yes, I will be spending the summer sneaking things in, dough discos all the way, games with pegs, whatever. He'll think its a game. I don't want him to have his confidence knocked if he struggles with things in Sept. He already thinks he can't do things like drawing.

It might be no harm to rule out a physical problem. My dd can't hold a pen properly. She has absolutely no upper body strength. She has hyper mobility which does affect her skills.

Children start school younger now and are expected to do more formal work earlier. I have a photo of me at nursery Christmas party I’m 4 almost 5. Now I’d have been in reception not nursery.
Clothes have changed so children don’t need to fasten laces and buckles or buttons.
More finger foods - pizza, nuggets than sit down meals with cutlery every night.
DD had occupational therapy input for disability and lots of things done like threading beads we did at home anyway but I can see some children wouldn’t have access to toys like that.

Yes I know we all played with toys that would develop our fine motor skills, but so do kids now surely? In fact they have a much wider range of toys than we ever did.

That right there shows your privilage and your ignorance to many many children's lives today. (I genuinely don't mean that in a rude or goady way - if you've never worked with children then I wouldn't expect you to know).

An awful lot of children start school never having picked up a pencil, used scissors or turned the pages of a book, because many homes don't have crayons, scissors, paper or books, never mind jigsaws or playdoh.

Obviously lots of kids do have a huge range of toys, but lots don't, and it's not always about poverty.

As much as I hate this government, i have to agree with their reasoning for getting young children into preschools early with the funding. I'd love to advocate for the education style in countries where children start formal education much later, but it would leave a lot of children so much further behind.

[email protected] bells on!! it perfectly summises both the confidence level of teachers&the sad reality of what they wouldve dealt with over previous years..glad its all behind me

@BrilloSolar

Yes I know we all played with toys that would develop our fine motor skills, but so do kids now surely? In fact they have a much wider range of toys than we ever did.

That right there shows your privilage and your ignorance to many many children's lives today. (I genuinely don't mean that in a rude or goady way - if you've never worked with children then I wouldn't expect you to know).

An awful lot of children start school never having picked up a pencil, used scissors or turned the pages of a book, because many homes don't have crayons, scissors, paper or books, never mind jigsaws or playdoh.

Obviously lots of kids do have a huge range of toys, but lots don't, and it's not always about poverty.

As much as I hate this government, i have to agree with their reasoning for getting young children into preschools early with the funding. I'd love to advocate for the education style in countries where children start formal education much later, but it would leave a lot of children so much further behind.

Oh for goodness sake. The answer to children being left behind because of poverty isn't thrusting them into a formal education setting earlier and earlier, it's preventing poverty in the first place.

That's something this government and Tories in general couldn't give a flying fuck about.

Fine and gross motor skills are worse now in children than a generation ago. New Scientist had an interesting article about balance a few months ago and it said they are seeing younger patients with balance issues and it is linked to more time sat on screens and less moving, especially outdoors where there are a variety of surfaces.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Droopyclematis

So true. I remember learning to tie laces in reception, but family kids are only learning by age 7 or 8 now.

My 8 year old can’t tie laces because he has never had to but has developed fine motor skills in other ways. I am guessing for most children they just haven’t had the need to learn as most shoes have Velcro. It doesn’t reflect the lack of development of fine motor skills but a shift in some of them skills needed at that age. The women in the generation above me could sew all sorts of clothes, curtains etc but they are not lamenting the lack of my fine motor skills when the best I can do is messily sew on a button and some name labels. I agree - it’s just piling on the parenting guilt. Most parents will naturally be doing these things anyway, those that genuinely don’t card aren’t going to suddenly start and there will be a few that just weren’t aware that will benefit from the advice (hopefully without being made to feel bad about not knowing).

(I’m just picking up on the shoelaces as it was mentioned a few times)

And yes to whoever said about developing gross motor skills. I remember a teacher telling us all to help our children develop strength in their upper arms through swimming, painting the fence with water (big up & down movements with the arms), using monkey bars etc to help with the fine motor skill development

I was encouraged to do all those things with my 15yo to develop his fine motor skills. He still has low dexterity in his fingers and struggles with the pincer grip so things like zippers, buttons and holding a pencil take a lot of concentration and no matter how hard he tries he can't tie laces which he finds really frustrating/embarrassing.

My 8yo can do all of those things with ease.

Yes, the gross motor skills need to be developed first. I'm an eyfs educator and we put a lot of emphasis on this so physical play, dance, catching and throwing balls, climbing, large scale painting etc. The shoulder joints and muscles need to be developed first then mark making, treezers, threading, play dough, independent dressing, button fastening, small world play etc to build up finger muscles ready for writing.
I've found in the last 10 years children are less physical and independent and a depressing number don't know how to play. They can work an ipad better than me though..