Developing a healthy image of self: by moving!
Developing gross and fine motor skills
In crawling the child lifts her torso against gravity. The hands and arms get connected to the shoulder, spine and back. This is very important for gross and fine motor skills.
Transitioning between positions
She can sit and change positions to have the hands free to play. Bones, muscles, connections between body parts and the eye sight grow stronger. The head-pelvis connection as well as balance make a huge jump.
With the development of movement comes the development of cognition.
Healthy children develop all of these movements around the second year of their live and then have the best conditions to go through life safely and easily. Because with the development of movement comes the development of cognition. Exploring the world means understanding the world. There is a correlation between emotions, movements and abilities.
The easier and freer a child can move, the more confident and happy he or she is.
Creating a map of the body
Body awareness develops through sensory-motor experiences in infancy and throughout childhood. As babies feel the world around them through movement and touch, the brain develops a ‘map’ of the body. This map becomes more and more sophisticated and accurate as experiences increase and babies develop the ability to move their bodies in a purposeful manner.
Constant alarm mode
Children who lack this self-image are permanently in fear and in alarm mode as they do not know where they are in the world..
Moreover without a 3dimensional image of ourself it is quite difficult to connect to other people.
Brain plasticity
The good news is that our brain is plastic. This means that it can learn at any time. If there was an interruption of the learning process – be it because of illness or of lack of opportunities for the child to move – it can learn what it has missed out on learning. It can relearn what has been lost.
