Healthy Movement for Young Children – Essential for Learning and for Life

We see the young child at the playground, fully in motion. He is playing, having fun, socializing, exploring heights and falls and the space around, strengthening his young limbs and growing a brain with full capacities for learning. At the playground, in school, and at home, an intricate interplay of growth forces is at work. These forces of play, drawn by the child’s interest and enthusiasm, help prepare the pathways for success in learning and in life.

Children grow into their bodies in a progression of phases through adulthood. Children of all ages need lots of healthy, meaningful movement to integrate not only involuntary infantile reflexes into voluntary mature movement s of the older child and adult, but basic senses of touch, vitality, self-movement and balance. This fascinating process takes place sequentially in the days and years of early childhood, through the many natural movements a young child makes. Sometimes called sensory-motor integration, it is an integral aspect of brain development. Most children progress naturally through these steps.

By the end of early childhood, a child should have achieved certain benchmarks of development. She should be able to skip, walk on a balance beam, balance on one foot in stillness, pay attention and sit on a chair for at least 20 minutes, clap a rhythm, reproduce shapes onto paper, and catch a soft ball, among many other tasks. A child who has difficulty with those seemingly simple tasks may be challenged later in the classroom with sitting still, listening, focusing her eyes, paying attention, and remembering letters and numbers.

In my private practice, I see many children of kindergarten age who have not yet mastered basic movement progressions and are being challenged already at school. One parent called me in distress because her kid “flunked kindergarten!” Often a teacher or counselor has recognized the child’s needs and helpfully prescribed extra developmental movement. They come to me or other therapeutic helpers for private or small class sessions where they get more practice in basic movements and progressions they need

What should a busy parent do to help ensure their child’s movement health?

• Long daily walks (45 minutes or so) in a natural setting are an excellent way for children (and adults) to exercise and harmonize themselves. A long walk to school each morning is like an apple a day for our movement – a habit full of healthful forces and nutrients – and your child’s teacher will notice a subtle shift in the child’s ability to engage the morning’s work. Drive to school? Park further away each day and walk in. Start a walk-to-school or afternoon hiking club with other families. Walk at the beach, barefoot in the sand, for a full sensory experience of touch, movement and sound.

• Provide an environment rich in possibilities for running freely, romping, skipping, walking, hiking, climbing, rolling and tumbling down hills, balancing, hopping, jumping, swinging and seesawing. Catching and throwing underhand with medium and large soft balls, balloon and beach ball play and obstacle courses (indoors and out!) also stimulate movement development. Older children can scooter, hopscotch, jump rope, and play handclapping games, string games, marbles and jacks. Hiking in nature and sand play at the beach are examples of healthful, natural rhythmic activities that strengthen important neural pathways.

• Cooking, crafts and gardening provide many opportunities for development of fine motor skills. Kneading dough, stirring a pot, sweeping, setting the table, folding napkins or laundry, cutting with scissors, painting, beading, sewing, finger knitting, drawing, pulling weeds and digging in the garden allow the child to practice intentional, meaningful movement in everyday life.

• Imaginative field games, circus arts with natural tumbling, and folk dance can enrich the movement activities of the child in the early grades. Team sports, ballet, gymnastics, martial arts and wilderness challenges are appropriate for the older youth facing puberty and the adolescent, after these early phases of development are complete and the forces of the gravity are well met.

One way to help distinguish the healthful and appropriate gesture of an activity for a young child is to try to glimpse how light or heavy the gesture may be. The pre-school and kindergarten child’s relationship to the earth is one of lightness, a gesture upwards. We see this in the toddler, barely on the ground as he totters from foot to foot, or the skipping romp down the sidewalk of our pre-schooler, or the exploratory climb up just about anything. Little by little, the child comes into stronger relationships with gravity. We recognize the obvious difference with gravity’s heavy droop of puberty in our middle-schoolers - also a part of healthy development! We can recognize the upright and balanced posture of the high-school graduate as he strides across the stage to accept his diploma and steps into the wider world of adulthood. As we gaze at our youngster in play, we can marvel at the potential about to unfold like the flowering bud, through the joyful movements of everyday life.

By Valerie Baadh, 2006

Valerie Baadh taught movement education at San Francisco Waldorf School for 15 years, and is now in private practice as a teacher, mentor and lecturer. She is a certified Spacial Dynamics practitioner and Bothmer Gymnast and is one of the international movement trainers for Hands-In-Peace youth festivals, recently directing dance for 200 children in Beijing, China.

Valerie Baadh