Child's strength Occupational Therapy afruit shoot cap?????

[Clarabellamum]

Hi all on friday my son's school phoned to speak to either myself or my husband,as i was starting work and my husband was finishing he went to the school.
Where the teacher informed him that our son was struggling with his hand writing he's 6 in january,Anyway the teacher informed us that it isn't a learning problem as he is in year one and doing year 4 school work(Our son is very bright) anyway this has lead to the teachers thinking it's a strenght in his hand's,arms,shoulders and that we need to work with him and them on.
Which ofcourse we are before maybe looking into Occupational Therapy

Now he is practicing at home with myself and my husband BUT we've noticed he can't get the cap off a fruit shoot bottle on his own is that normal for his age or is it all part of the above problem? or is it normal for his age that he can't get it off and were maybe worrying a little to much????

how is his fine motor control generally? It could be a strength or a control issue, or a bit of both.
But he is 5, how good are they expecting him to be with writing?
Children often do have spiky profiles so can be good academically but maybe a little less than average with motor skils, fine or gross.

Maybe look at his general fine motor skills, can he do buttons/zips/manage cutlery weel enough etc etc?
There are simple enough fine motor exercises on line that look at improving motor control, particularly pencil skills, have a google.
For strength, things like playdough, modellling, making cats cradles using fingers, make cakes getting your hands in their to mix.
What are his joints like, is he generally flexible & bendy. Having slightly more flexible joints can make writting more difficult & fatigue can be a problem.

But honestly if you believe his fine motor skills are generally OK then they probably are & he is just being your average 5 yr old.

There are loads of other OT type fine exercises on line, threading beads, sewing, peg boards etc etc.

best thing is to get referral to OT for a proper assessment - fruit shoot caps are tricky anyway for many including me sometimes and not part of standard assessments ...

get on wait list now because you might have to wait 3 months anyway.

6 is a bit young to worry about handwriting unless is prep school??? or is particularly terrible?

strength for wrting does come form trunk postural strength too .

ask school to refer to OT for an assessment - the ABC motor test is fun for kids to do;
my dd (who has no cognitive issues at all) did this one several times as has hypermobility and had weakness and it shows where the strengths are and weaknesses and what to work on

www.psychometrics.cam.ac.uk/page/93/motor-impairment.htm

also, other than doing normal stuff with your ds running swimming playing - you should not be trying specific exercises to build strength without some profressional input or review first.

it could be as simple as providing the right seating for example .

Generally he is very flexible and his motor skill's are great really other than his handwriting we have no belief that there is a problem.

He's not at prep school but it's something the infant school has picked up on because there doesn't seem to have been much improvement with regards to the extra classes he has had for handwriting (2 a week) ontop of normal school work.
Again maybe the fact that he's as bright as he is, their is an expectation by the school for him??? as the handwriting is the only thing that hold's him back. currently were doing everything suggested by the school and waiting to see if there is any improvement before we get intouch with OT.

We have been given bag's of items by the school that focus on OT type fine exercises. aswell as us buying plastercine and playdough, i should stress we are a healthy family and he get's plenty of exercise.

The fruit shoot came up as it seem's to be something he couldn't open by himself though on reflection maybe with everything being mentioned on friday we have seen that and worried to much about something and nothing.