Gross motor skills: why should I encourage them in my child?
Gross motor skills are all major movement skills of the body, such as crawling, walking or hopping. In our article you can read about the role that well-developed gross motor skills play in child development and how you can promote gross motor skills.
Gross Motor Skills: What is it?
Gross motor skills are all of the muscle movements in your body. All actions that serve the overall movement fall under this. Larger muscle groups are used. It is advisable to encourage gross motor skills in children by giving them the opportunity, time and space to move. Examples of gross motor skills are: walking, running, crawling and hopping.
Other gross motor skills:
- Climb
- Stand
- wave
- Balance
- Cycle
- To swim
After birth, a child first acquires movement sequences in the area of gross motor skills. Arm and leg coordination is trained and automated. As the child progresses, it learns to move independently and walk upright.
Why is gross motor skills so important?
Gross motor skills are an important part of child development, because further fine motor development builds on well-developed gross motor skills. Only a child who has gained enough gross motor movement experience is able to learn fine motor skills, such as writing or tying shoelaces.
Age-appropriate development is important because the developmental level of your child affects other areas of life. A child whose gross motor skills are well developed not only has fewer problems learning to write at school and keeping up with their peers in physical education. It can also concentrate better, is more confident and can react more quickly. These qualities also benefit him in everyday life.
Encourage gross motor skills with games
If you want to support your child in the development of their gross motor skills, you should give them enough opportunity, time and space to exercise. You can also encourage your child with many different physical activity incentives. We have put together a few game ideas for you that you can use to playfully train your child’s gross motor skills:
- Throwing cans: Set out some empty cans and let your child knock balls over the cans from a distance. This trains coordination and power dosing.
- Catch: Playing catch trains your child’s strength and endurance.
- Balloon: You can do great things with a balloon. You can practice basic gross motor skills, throwing and catching, with your child and a sense of achievement is guaranteed. A balloon flies much slower than a normal ball. You can even play balloon tennis with a fly swatter.
- Playground: You can visit exciting playgrounds in the area with your child as often as possible. There your child can practice climbing, swinging and balancing.
- Balancing on the wall: You should take every opportunity to encourage your child to move. A wall or a felled tree trunk in the forest are perfect opportunities to balance.
- Jumping in puddles: The next rain is also suitable for training your child’s gross motor skills. Who manages to jump over the puddles without getting wet feet?