Kid's and physical activity

Our children are learning keyboard control at an increasingly early age, but is their ball control suffering? Times have changed.  Children growing up in the 60s and 70s spent a great deal of their lives outdoors engaged in intensely physical activities. 

Playing cricket in the street with local kids, climbing trees, building billycarts and wandering around the whole neighbourhood in safety are almost unknown pleasures to children in the 90s.  But what are the effects of lower levels of activity in today’s children?  Parents can play a very important and active role in helping to develop strong gross motor skills.

Children nowadays tend to spend their time in more supervised and structured ways.  They may be involved in several activities, but are generally driven to and from these. 

Stranger danger, increased traffic volumes, medium and high-density housing with resultant smaller backyards, have all contributed to children spending less time outdoors playing games involving running, co-ordination and ball skills. 

With the range of electronic entertainments now available, many children spend proportionately more hours in front of a computer or TV or playing hand-held games, than they do outside engaging in physical activities.

More mothers are working and fathers work longer hours than in the 60s and 70s.  It all adds up to less time for parents and children together, and perhaps fewer opportunities for children to learn the six basic sporting skills:

• Hitting or striking a ball
• Tracking and trapping a ball (which means watching and catching)
• Ball control (e.g. bouncing or dribbling it with hands or feet)
• Locomotion (e.g. running, hopping, skipping and jumping)
• Kicking
• Throwing

This trend has been highlighted by a report on the fitness of NSW schoolchildren released by the NSW Department of Education and Training, which showed an alarmingly low mastery of basic gross motor skills. 

Only eight per cent of Year 4 boys and only three per cent of girls in the same year had mastered kicking or striking a ball, and only 18 per cent of boys and four per cent of girls had mastered throwing.

Mastering gross motor skills

Why is early mastery of basic gross motor skills so important?  And why are the authorities so concerned about our children’s lack of mastery of them?  The Australian Sports Commission (ASC), a body set up by the Federal government, says that being without the basic sporting skills might mean children avoiding sport for the rest of their lives. 

This can lead to poor health later in life, as the habits of fitness and activity are not learnt or appreciated.  Not playing sport may mean more limited social interaction, and self-esteem may also be affected.

But it seems that not mastering these basics at an early age can have other less obvious implications.  How to Develop Your Child’s Intelligence by Gerry Getman, says that poor gross motor skills can affect handwriting ability, language ability, distractibility and overall co-ordination of a child’s body. 

Studies have also shown that good overall body co-ordination, postural balance and movement skills make significant contributions to intellectual development.

You can help

Parents are well placed to assist in the teaching of gross motor skills to children from the ages of three onwards.  There are many simple experiences parents can share with their children to help them with the development of these essential skills and to provide opportunities for practice.

Getman suggests that if children start school with few or poorly developed gross motor skills, they could be ‘behind the eight ball’ from the start.  They may have trouble with fine and gross motor co-ordination throughout the school years.  Also, higher skills, like becoming good at sport, can only arise out of a base of good gross motor development.

If we want our children to start school with their best foot forward, it’s up to us to ensure they’ve had good exposure to the basic gross motor skills, if not mastery of them, by the time they go to school.

Remember, when teaching children any skill, the most important thing is not to pressure them.  The emphasis is on fun, not performance.  Here is a selection of exercises for starting children on some basic gross motor skills (for ages three to six), from the Australian Sports Commission’s Sportstart book, which can be used in many different settings.

Gross Motor Skills Checklist

The Australian Sports Commission suggests that between the ages of five and seven, children should be able to do the following:

• Ride a bicycle
• Bounce and catch a ball
• Dribble a ball
• Hit a ball of a tee
• Pull their chin up to an overhead bar
• Run 30 metres in under 10 seconds
• Skip using alternate feet
• Do a few bent-knee sit ups
• Skip with a rope
• Hop and stand on one foot with their eyes closed

Simple exercises to try

• Catching – start children off gently with a balloon, or rolling a large, soft ball along the floor.
• Balance – catch a balloon or ball while kneeling; practice standing on one leg; stand and then walk on tiptoe; walk backwards using large and small steps; walk with a beanbag or small book on their head.
• Co-ordination – kick a ball or milk carton along; walk along a rope or chalk line; make a bat from a cardboard tube or rolled newspaper and hit an object along the ground; throw objects into a container (eg. balled socks into a laundry basket).

Indoor Obstacle Course

Start

• Crawl under chairs (place sheet over the chairs to make a tunnel).
• Climb over a pile of cushions.
• Walk along masking tape variations: forwards/backwards/on tiptoes, large/small step.
• Over a pillow, onto a towel, jumping onto a cushion.
• Step in and out of cardboard boxes.
• Throw rolled up socks/ball into a laundry basket.
• Kick a small object/cardboard box, between chair legs.
• Squeeze yourself an orange juice.

Finish

Wendy Schiller (Ph.D) is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood at Macquarie University, and a Member of the national Playshop Sport Start Committee.

This article was first published on JIGSAW, the magazine of Family Day Care Australia, Issue 11, Summer 1998.

By Dr Wendy Schiller

Useful books and websites

The Australian Sport Commission has a section on Junior Sport development and a number of resource packs available to order.
 

The information provided in this article is intended as a guide only. Always consult your doctor if you or your child is suffering any medical complaint. Any websites referred to by Australian Family contain information moderated by government and medical institutions or organisations.

This article was published in Australian Family Magazine, May 1999. Updated July 2009.