Unsporty/uncoordinated child - how much to push to do things?

[notsporty]

My DD1 is 5 and has never been a sporty kind of child. She's quite uncoordinated, struggles with stuff like riding a bike, we are going to swimming lessons with a 1:2 ratio and it's clear how far off the other kids she is, it's like she can't do two things at the same time, or like she can't process how to kick her legs as well as be floating. She is coming on but very very slowly, and I find it really upsetting (I don't show it to her) watching the gap between her and other kids widen when it comes to being physical. Stuff like climbing as well she's pretty poor at.

To give another example, she took ages to learn how to balance her weight on a swing properly to stop herself just slipping off. To me it seemed like such a natural just kind of thing to move your body weight so you don't fall off, but she couldn't balance that way. Even now she's very precarious. She also can't jump onto swings like her pals, I still have to lift her if it's too high. Never got the hang of a balance bike.

She was always kind of on the later end with gross motor milestones, still within range but near the end age rather than start. Her younger sibling is totally different and I would say almost more physically able in some ways already despite the 3-year age gap.

She's active enough, we walk to school and back every day which is about 15 mins each way, she rides her scooter (she can manage the 3-wheel one) and likes running and dancing, the trampoline, she goes for long walks with her dad at weekends, she has two PE days at school a week.

She's incredibly crafty and creative, interested in languages, singing, she's a very healthy child, rarely ill, doing fine at school, fine at home although she has her moments as all 5yos do!

At what point do I stop trying to push her to do this stuff and just accept that it's not for her? We keep trying the bike as so many of her pals are out and about on them, but she has very little interest in the first place. But then I feel we are doing her a disservice by not having her keep up with her friends. She was invited to a bike party over the summer and had to take her scooter because she can't ride her bike, and then just got left behind as she was a lot slower.

Swimming I know is a 'life skill' so we shall persevere with it but the progress is glacial because she just seems so uncoordinated and unaware.

I feel awful because I feel myself getting so frustrated I wasn't a sporty kid myself but I learned to ride a bike etc at the 'usual' age without any real problems.

Has anyone else had this issue or has any insight?

Dyspraxia? That would be my first thought. DS also was not at all sporty either, I'd keep going with the swimming as it will help with strength and coordination but drop the bike riding.

I'd suspect something like this is going on for her. Either way, she doesn't have to be sporty. She's 5. She's active. That's plenty enough.

My DS is like this, and so was I. We both have very hypermobile joints which makes it much more difficult to balance & to move with coordination and power. Could this be an issue for your DD?

My advice would be to look into OT, get a couple of wobble boards for at home which she might enjoy standing on and which will strengthen the muscles around her ankles and knees, which will help stabilise her joints. This can also help her develop her balance & core strength.

Absolutely do not push anything your DD doesn’t actively enjoy. I was put off exercise for years by well-meaning teachers and coaches who thought I just needed to try harder (and parents who were obviously a bit embarrassed).

I’ve lived a perfectly successful life without ever needing to excel at sports or gymnastics, and social play becomes much less relentlessly physical once kids get a bit older.

If your Dd can ride a bike at 5, she’s still ahead of a lot of kids her age. Just not the ones you’re seeing out and about on bikes!

Dyspraxia, weak core, cerebral palsy, hyper mobility. Plenty of explanations. Why don’t you look into WHY she struggles with this? If she was struggling with reading you wouldn’t say, when can we give up on this? She doesn’t need to be an amazing swimmer but learning how her body works, what it responds to and possibly some PT and OT will work wonders. Help her achieve the goals SHE can but also give her the vocabulary to explain why some things are harder than others.

One of mine was like this. I would say physical exercise is as important as reading and maths, and you are more likely to keep up with physical exercise if you are not miles behind everyone else. So push it as much as you would reading and times tables to keep her within reach of her peers. The swinging issue suggests she might have poor core strength so look at activities to build her core, as actually a lot of what we think is coordination comes from this: you can't do the finer things like balance on a a bike without that first big building block.

Try fun things where she is only comparing herself or that you do with her, like planking in front of the TV and trying to do longer each time. Chalk a target on the wall and she throws a tennis ball at it, getting points for different zones that gets rewards. Sitting on a skateboard then using your arms to zoom around. She might never be the best or the fastest, but you can build up so she could enjoy team sport. Local cricket clubs are usually really inclusive

Dyspraxia was my first thought to. Can you look into this and get her appropriate support.

Maybe exercise with her - flexibility exercises? There's lots on YouTube but Livinleggings is excellent

Another thing is that although she's on track for reading and writing based on her class, it feels like she should be a fair bit further ahead than she is. I was a super early reader, we've always done a lot of reading at home, we are a book family, I work in publishing, we've done lots of learning to read stuff before we started school, but she's really struggling with the phonics. She doesn't seem to get that she needs to sound the letters out, she'll look at something like 'mat' and won't make any sounds, just starts guessing random words that often don't even begin with that letter in the first place.

Teacher says she's on course with rest of class so maybe my perspective isn't right on this, but something doesn't feel quite right about the way she's approaching it, but DH just says the teacher says she's fine and doesn't really engage in further discussion about it. So maybe it's just me.

The physical stuff is at least objectively obvious even to him.

Yes, I would be wondering if there is some.sprt of issue here too. An assessment by an oT would be very helpful. Dyspraxia is a processing disability. It often comes with othwr processing issues such as hyper sensitivity to light, Touch, sound. It can also.present in difficulty with fine motor skills like diing.yp.buttons, threading beads, tying shoe laces. Keep up with the physical activities generally. Definitely continue with swimming and persevere, if you can, with the bike. Ds does not.meet the threshold for dyspraxia but has sensory processing disorder and many markers for dyspraxia. OT was hugely beneficial for him ad was attending a multi sport group for nearly 5 years - non competitive, very inclusive but allowed hik.to.improve some.skills and.build up some.strength.

Thanks, off to read through replies but thinking a trip to doctor might be in order to at least explore some stuff. It's not really been apparent until school started I suppose or perhaps it has and I've just not realised.

Just because you are a reader, doesn't mean she will be. But yes, struggling like this all rings bells. It can also be difficult for them tomprocess language- a huge issue for ds when smaller and to a lesser extent now. So hearing explanations is almost impossible for them when v young, especially in busy noisy classroom environments.

Have you mentioned any of her physical issues to the GP? If not, why not?
My first thought was also dyspraxia, but hypermobility and a number of other neurological and physical issues might be the cause. I'd be at least getting things ruled out, because some conditions have many other side effects, other than just the physical difficulties.

Activity is still important for confidence even if she isn't ever going to be class champion.

I'd keep up the swimming lessons until she can swim well enough to get herself out if she fall in a body of water.

And then can you find one thing that she actively enjoys such as trampolining or parkrun. ideally something you can do together, and stick with that.

I guess because up till the last few months, it didn't really occur to me that there was a 'reason' for it. She's always hit milestones, nursery had no concerns, she's had regular HV checks that she's passed with flying colours. But I feel like it's only recently it's tipped over in my brain from 'just not sport-inclined' to 'hmm this seems weird'.

It's interesting as I have very poor fine motor skills. It's a running joke that my 'fingers don't work very well'. But my gross motor is pretty average. DD seems to have pretty decent fine motor, but the gross motor is lacking. I wonder if there's a connection.

It could be several factors at play.
My DD (10) has hyper mobility & loves & is very good at swimming as it supports the joints; whereas she's really not good at things like running etc. Sports Day is torture but she found she is good at archery & loves horse riding, so I guess it's also about opening up the options for sport wider than traditional team or ball-based sports too.
But definitely get her to the GP/OT.

You can take two approaches.

1. avoid sport/exercise, because she’s not very good at it.
2. Put her in everything you can think of, especially stuff like ballet/gymnastics/trampolining/street dance/climbing/skateboarding. See what she enjoys.

sport is like anything else. The more you do it the better you get. I’ve seen some very uncoordinated and dyspraxic kids make huge improvements by sticking with activity.

she may not reach the olympics/dance professionally etc, but she may get to the point where she’s no longer uncoordinated, which is a massive achievement.

if she avoids it she won’t improve her co-ordination. And I think that’s a really valuable thing to work on.

I think with Dyspraxia it is pretty common for it to affect either gross motor or fine motor skills for instance I’m dyspraxic and struggle to park my car or indeed think a tiny car is the size of a bus but I can do tiny intricate nail art

Look up the beighton scale for hypermobility and have mum dad and dc do it . Who scores high?
Then ask for physio and OT assessment and strategies and exercises

https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/assessing-joint-hypermobility/

I was also going to say dyspraxia as well.

Activities to that help with balance and strength f or kids with dyspraxia include

Dance is helpful particularly ballet
Swimming
Martial arts
Horse riding

If you want to do something at home

Going up and down the stairs
Making assault courses with uneven surfaces like cushions, duvets ect.
Balancing in one leg
Playing the floor is lava.

My daughter is incredibly uncoordinated, as am I, ballet has really helped her strength and posture.

Sounds a lot like my son who has dyspraxia and dyslexia. We focus on him being healthy and active and let him choose the activities he wants to pursue.

For reading, phonics made no sense to him but the online Easy Read system worked brilliantly.

My daughter is 7 - exactly the same.

Still struggling but made a lot of progress in the last year. Still can't ride a bike or swim but getting there.

I'm leaving it another couple of years before I look into dyspraxia because her fine motor is ok - writing is ok, close to getting her pen licence

I thought DS was dyspraxic when he was little, but he was assessed with hypotonia and low muscle strength. We were advised to do more exercise rather than less. He was late managing to ride a bike, but once he had the strength to do it he was off and pedalling like a demon!

Find what she enjoys.

DS1 was ‘working towards’ gross motor skills all the way to Y2. Then lockdown hit and DH taught him to bowl (cricket). Turns out if you spend two hours a day every day bowling against a garden wall you can get pretty good. He loves cricket and is now playing U12 County Cricket. He is still very lopsided with sport (D team football at school but likely to be playing two or three years up for cricket) but he has a sport he adores. And practice does help and the skills transfer…his PE teacher gave them a squash lesson and asked whether he plays for a club (he’d never played before).

Most of the other boys doing County Cricket with him are also serious footballers and rugby players with natural coordination DS1 would love to have. But he can still hold his own at his chosen sport.