FINE TUNING

Right from birth your baby is learning how to use her smaller muscles. Help her with this task, in these ways.

WITHOUT FINE MOTOR skills, you wouldn’t be able to write, use a knife and fork, or play the piano. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Every day you successfully execute hundreds of movements using the smallest muscles in your body.

The way the muscles in your hands, fingers, wrists, toes, eyes and even your tongue work together to allow you to complete fine tasks accurately is known as your fine motor skills.

Children need this ability. They use their fine motor skills to manipulate objects and tools and to explore their world. Their fine motor skills eventually influence even their intelligence.

Gross motor skills, which are developed by climbing, crawling, running, jumping and hanging, form the basis for the development of fine motor skills. These skills are developed in conjunction with one another, so it’s no use stimulating your child’s fine motor capabilities if her gross motor skills are neglected.

For drawing, your child needs the small muscles in her hand so she can grip the pencil correctly. But even if her small muscles are well developed, she needs strong arm and even back muscles so she can sit upright. Without this ability she’ll struggle to keep her hand stable enough to draw accurately.

THE FIRST YEAR

Your newborn’s hands are balled up into fists and only occasionally enter her field of vision. When she does see her hands, she has no idea as yet what they are! As her grasping reflex fades, her fists will begin to relax. Soon she’ll be able to move her hands to her mouth, and so starts a new voyage of discovery.