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?

Actually, my childhood activities did develop fine motor skills; here's a list of the basic skills expected before we started school age 5.

Even in a highchair, toddlers learnt to feed themselves with a spoon. When you graduated to a cushion on a chair, you ate at the table with a spoon and pusher. Once you'd mastered the spoon and pusher you graduated to a fork and pusher then child-size knife and fork (age 3-ish).
As soon as breast or bottlefeeding ended, babies drank from an ordinary open cup. Then learned how to pick it up, hold it and drink and put it back down on the table without spilling.
On a rainy day, common acitivities were drawing. "colouring books" ( "colouring -in" inside the lines).
Wax crayons, then coloured pencils. If your pencil tip broke (often) you used a pencil sharpener.
Threading beads.
Cutting out paper dolls with child scissors (blunt )
Jigsaws.
Plasticine.
Playing with the leftover bits of pastry until it was grey.
Sandpies.
Chalking (outside, usually on pavements.)
Learning to do up our buttons, shoe buckles and tie shoe laces.

    Nobody knew it was "learning fine motor skills" .

I forgot "cats cradles" (string game), "tracing" ( copying picture outlines on greaseproof paper ) and scrap books.

Scrap books were pictures cut out of old xmas cards or magazines or catalogues, (scissor skills) then glued on to pages ( any old paper, first we made the glue by mixing flour and water) . Oh the thrill when my Dad gave me a pot of Gloy ( real glue).

Even in a highchair, toddlers learnt to feed themselves with a spoon. When you graduated to a cushion on a chair, you ate at the table with a spoon and pusher. Once you'd mastered the spoon and pusher you graduated to a fork and pusher then child-size knife and fork (age 3-ish)

That's still how it's done, if by 'pusher' you mean something spoon-like? That's certainly how we've done it with our three year old!

I began teaching over 40 years ago and we heard lots in college about fine motor skills and they were very much part of infant classrooms even back in the 80s. Families were often bigger then and you wouldn't give mothers extra tasks as they would think l haven't time for that. Nowadays a lot of parents like to know how they can help and it is surprising how many don't think when buying birthday presents etc to give consideration to these skills. A lot of children just get the biggest flashier toy which actually does nothing after a day or two. I am shocked at how many children say..l am not allowed to use a scissors at home and have never seen a child's scissors. Getting ideas of things to do can be helpful to parents and they are free to ignore too!!

No harm in practicing things like carrying a tray or changing for PE. We did lots of pretending to go to school activities with our DC.

Our reception TA has found the last intake harder to manage as many hadn’t been away from mum much, nurseries closed etc. Took a lot more time doing care rather than teaching. Do what you can or think is appropriate. Enjoy the last summer before the school run

No harm in practicing things like carrying a tray or changing for PE. We did lots of pretending to go to school activities with our DC.

Not heard of dressing up?

We use to put on old adults clothes at playgroup as children not special costumes.

My DD, who is 2, can take of and put on her own clothes as long as they are slightly too big for her. She could put on and take off her own shoes - wellies and velcro straps - from about 19 months though it would take ages at the beginning.

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this but I read a few years ago that new surgeons coming through are lacking the fine motor skills needed for stitching and other surgical procedures. Academically excellent, but they're not used to using their hands / fingers in this way and need extra training.

The article quoted a senior surgeon saying that children's hobbies have changed and so be felt this was the root cause of the lack of these critical skills.

@Maybeitstime2021 it sounds like this has touched a nerve with you. Are you worried your DC is struggling with fine motor skills?

I am a children's physiotherapist and I can see changes in children's gross and fine motor skills even in the last 2 years with the effect of lockdowns. Hugely increased screen time and lack of opportunity for outdoor play. There are exceptions, but generally the children i see are heavier and unfitter than ever.

Gross motor (crawling, walking, jumping, cycling) needs to be developed before fine motor so this year more than ever I think kids will struggle in reception. I have a DC starting reception this year. The pandemic started when she was still 2yo. She had way more screen time than her older siblings at that age. She missed 6 months of nursery, months of playgrounds, swimming etc at a vital stage. We are lucky, we have a decent sized house, a garden with a climbing frame and slide, she inherited older siblings bikes and live semi rurally. I still think her skills are a little behind what they could be. The poor kids at the same age cooped up in flats with limited space for exercise and toys will have suffered far more.

The issue with screens is what they are missing out on whilst they are starting at screens. The fine motor skills for screens are very simple compared to cutting/ sticking, colouring for the hand muscles.

I even think modern playgrounds are tame compared to older fashioned ones. They seem to lack more challenging play equipment.

That's really interesting about new surgeons lacking fine motor skills.

This thread has made me buy some play doh for ds, for over the holidays. I know they play with it in his class at school.

@BigPyjamas

Apologies if someone has already mentioned this but I read a few years ago that new surgeons coming through are lacking the fine motor skills needed for stitching and other surgical procedures. Academically excellent, but they're not used to using their hands / fingers in this way and need extra training.

The article quoted a senior surgeon saying that children's hobbies have changed and so be felt this was the root cause of the lack of these critical skills.

I saw this as well.

There are skills that current kids learn from playing console games so many have better hand to eye co-ordination than older adults, but there are other skills we learnt from sewing, knitting, cutting things up, colouring etc that they don't have.

Ideally you want your kid to do a good mixture of things.

Great holiday task for 4 and 5 year olds

Bowl of uncooked rice. Empty bowl. Pair of tweezers.
Move the rice using the tweezers from one bowl to the other.

Being a mother was considered a full time job and involved keeping your child busy without a lot of stuff. They'd help with matching and pairing socks, play with clothes pegs, sit and fiddle with gravel, scribble lists while mum was making a shopping list etc. They had shoes with laces or buckles, shirts with buttons etc etc. Make peg dolls from fabric scraps etc.

Nursery rhymes with actions develop motor skills.

All soul destroyingly boring in many ways, there weren't many places to go so there was lots of time to kill.
It was undervalued and gone by the wayside.

Now, with tv and phones and reduced input from parents, children have a less rich physical environment- unless they get it at nursery.

You would be surprised how many start school without knowing how to use cutlery. How to hold a pencil. How to wipe their own arse. How to put their own coat on/take it off. Never seen a crayon or paint. And I don't mean children with additional needs.

I quickly left working in early years because it was so hard to keep quiet listening to parents saying this is why they go school to learn these things.

It's not just fine motor activities. You need good gross motor skills to have good fine motor skills and modern living is terrible for that.

First up people use those car seats that clip onto a frame to become a pushchair so baby is cocooned rather than stretched out in a pram and later sitting using their core strength. Those things are terrible.

People put babies in those awful jumperoo's. They encourage tiptoe walking, poor hip position and time spend in that means they aren't on the floor pushing through their arms, learning where their body is and developing core strength.

They then get older and aren't sat at the dining table for meals so it's harder to develop cutlery skills. They spend time lying down playing on iPads so aren't activating their core. They aren't outside climbing, bike riding etc.

Then there is all the fine motor things already mentioned.

Also though it is spatial awareness. So building in Minecraft isn't the same as building with Lego where you have to workout size, space and relationship to other items.