Helping Your Toddler With His Motor Skills

by Beverly Sugarman

As everyone knows, toddlers are always on the move and full of energy. While normal play is a natural stage in the development of your child’s gross motor skills, you may also need to have him participate in activities that can help to tune in his fine motor skills.

Gross motor skills are those that involve basic movements, such as walking and jumping. Fine motor skills are those that deal with the small movements that are executed with precision and usually involve the fingers, hands, and wrists. One way that you can help your child to develop these skills is to play with building blocks. By stacking these items, your child will learn to carefully place one block on top of the other. This exercise can also help to build his decision-making skills, as he will need to plan how to place the blocks to build the design that he wants. Allowing your child to perform simple tasks for himself can also help to develop his fine motor skills. Working with him and teaching him how to button his shirt and work a zipper are excellent ways to give him practice at performing precision tasks. You can also allow him to help you with certain household tasks, such as folding washcloths. The folding process will also require your child to plan his movements in order to fold a cloth into a square.

Helping in the kitchen and feeding himself is also excellent ways in which you can help your child to develop his fine motor skills. His coordination will be tuned as he learns to put food on a spoon and to aim it towards his mouth. Allowing him to butter his own toast can also help to develop the precision movements in his wrist.

Another good way to help your toddler to develop his fine motor skills is to allow him to color and draw. You should make sure to have washable crayons and markers as little ones may not understand that they are only suppose to do this activity on paper. Finger-painting is another activity that you can share with him that will help him to concentrate and focus on using one finger at a time. Both these activities will also allow him to explore his imagination and use any creative talents that he might possibly possess.

An easy exercise for your child to help develop these skills as well as his coordination is to sing and dance to “activity” songs that require movement while singing. A few examples of these are “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, “Ring Around the Rosey,” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” There are also a number of interactive CDs and DVDs that focus on children’s songs that your child can listen and dance to. These products can teach your youngster how to follow directions. The DVDs also contain a large amount of color and movement to keep your child’s attention focused.

These are just a few of the many activities that you can share with your toddler to help him to develop his fine motor skills. For more information, you can discuss your child’s skills with your doctor or search online for more creative ideas to help your child to improve his motor skills, coordination, and balance.