Role of movement in the development of a child

Contrary to a commonly-held perception, that movement is “good exercise” for young children, decades of research show there’s more to it than just that. Research confirms that, in addition to physical fitness, there’s a strong co-relationship between proficiency of childhood movement, and the social and cognitive aspects of early childhood development. And that’s one reason that teachers and care givers at day care in Gaithersburg MD stress both mental exercise and physical movement in their curriculum.

More Than Healthy Bodies

It’s common knowledge that lack of physical movement in young children induces unhealthy physical traits, such as lethargy, obesity, and poor posture. However, it’s also true that movement (or lack of it) impacts other aspects of a young child’s development, including decision-making, perception, language skills, memory, emotion, and attention span.

Staff and administrators at daycare in Potomac pack a healthy balance of mental and physical activity in a child’s day at the center. Grounded on mainstream early childhood development research, this approach helps young kids develop their basic motor skills. But it also goes a long way to improving school readiness. It is those movement-dependent skills, that they acquire and strengthen at a young age, that will help them succeed in academic and social endeavors later in life.

Setting Them up For Success

Early childhood movements play a critical role in developing two sets of motor skills in young children:

  • Gross Motor Skills: These relate to large muscular movements, such as walking, standing, jumping, or running
  • Fine Motor Skills: These involve focus on smaller muscles, and relate to skills such as picking-up objects, flexing the wrists, and moving and stacking puzzle pieces into place

Under the supervision of trained care givers at day care in Rockville MD, young kids hone both types of motor skills, which sets them up for success later in life. Good gross motor skills come in handy when children must perform physically-demanding tasks, such as hoisting their backpacks on their shoulders, or moving chairs or books around a room. These skills also contribute to children’s successful integration into society, including participating in team sports or group leisure activity.

By promoting and encouraging more subtle levels of movements in young children, that build on fine motor skills, parents and educators also set them up for future academic and social success. It is these fine motor skills that help young kids write, turn the pages of books, or even pack their school lunch boxes.

Getting Kids Moving

If you visit a day care in Gaithersburg MD, you’ll see young kids interacting with trained professional staff in various ways. Movement-based activity include playing with toys, riding cycles, walking around a child-proof room, and playing with puzzles. Other activity, such as picking books and toys from shelves, turning book pages, and eating snacks and meals with their fingers, also induces movement in children that contributes to their development.

As children grow older, many of the exercises are no longer required. They’ll instinctively use many of the Gross and Fine motor skills they’ve learned, to perform tasks required of them when the integrate into the workforce and broader society. Not developing those skills at a young age, however, can pose significant risk to their growth and development in later years.