Photo by Ryan Fields on Unsplash

Congratulations! You have reached the last week of this course. We will move on to complex movements.

Building Blocks

The milestones that come later in child development - like transitions from crawling to all fours, or walking - seem to be more complex and advanced than earlies stages. That is not necessarily the case. Maybe it is more accurate to imagine developmental steps as building blocks, with the next step always referring back to the level before.

Children always move at the highest possible easy movement ability they already developed. Each new milestone adds a new challenge that has to be resolved.

Learning can occur anywhere, at any time. Quite a few children learn standing and walking before they start to crawl, especially if they have an unflexible back and arms that are slow to lift. That is no problem in itself - but there are times that are more opportune in development to learn special skills.

If one step is missing or performed in a lesser quality, it will be lacking in further development, and possibly needs to be learned under more difficult circumstances.

For instance, on all fours, we have to differentiate the shoulder blade and spine in various ways to move our arms. A child that is already walking doesn`t necessarily need this skill to move the feet forward in walking - but it might walk with stiff hands and a compromised balance, and develop at an overall slower pace.

On the other hand, twisting spine movements that a child usually learns rolling over before lifting itself off the floor and coming to sit and crawl are not only useful for rolling but allow for functions like looking sideways in sitting, lifting arms and legs in crawling, developing a contralateral movement pattern in walking - and playing sports like tennis, golf or baseball.

The next Week

In the later milestones, off the floor, the major new factor that comes into play is balance in space. This is what we will be looking for this week.

If you feel this is too advanced for your child, please go back and repeat this part of the course later - but remember: already on day one we worked on abilities your child will need to move independently and with joy.