Helping your child Learn

 We all want our children to be the best that they can be. We want them to learn and grow. However, sometimes things don't go quite as planned. Today I want to talk about two things that could be the problem. These two things go hand in hand. It is eye hand coordination and small muscle strength in the hands. Both the eye and the hands have muscles. As we all know muscle need to be exercised to be strong and healthy. However, most people forget about the eyes and the hands. 

Even if your child is not having problems, it would be a good idea to check for problems and even do some of the activities to help prevent problems. Symptoms of these problems include but are not limited to: 

• poor reading skills
• poor writing skills
• avoidance of schoolwork
• not being about to catch a ball
• not being about to kick a ball
• not being about to hit a ball with a bat
• running into things
• not putting things completely on a surface (such as a cup half on and half off of a table)
• frequently knocking over things
• rapid eye blinking when trying to focus on any reading material 

I good test to see if your child could develop these issues or if these issues could be from eye hand coordination problems is to simply try to get your child to follow a point without moving his or her head.  Please don't assume that your child's eye is good because they can pass and eye exam. My son has 20/20 vision, and he still had poor eye hand coordination. Most eye doctors are not trained to catch or correct this type of vision issue. 

1. Get something like a cute pencil eraser and have your child look at it. Hold it Infront of your child's face. Can your child focus on it with his or her eyes for 5 to 10 seconds without losing focus? If your child's eyes wonder around, there is a change of an issue. 
2. Now slowly move the object up, down, left and right. Did your child's eyes follow? If not, there is a chance of an issue. 

Another common problem is poor hand strength. This will cause your child to not be able to write. Now this problem can be with or without eye problems. Symptoms can include but or not limited to the following:

• poor writing skills
• poor pencil grip
• refusal to play with play dough or Legos for any length of time
• dislike of coloring 
• dislike of drawing
• dislike of most activities that involve sitting still (think about those activities involve the hands)

These issues can be helped and even fixed with time, patience, and hard work. Here are some activities for these issues. 

• Play with play dough 
• Picking up small things with tweezers
• Coloring
• Drawing
• painting
• Buttoning and unbuttoning 
• String or thread anything onto a shoestring
• Lacing cards
• Building with Legos
• Putting puzzles together
• Practice letter writing
• Mazes (make sure your child staying in the middle of the maze lines)
• Tracing (draw straight and zigzag lines for your child to trace)
• Cutting (draw lines straight and zigzag onto a piece of paper then have the child cut on the line)
• play catch with different size balls

Make these activities as fun as possible. Congratulate verbally on even small improvements to help with their motivation. Remember that when you start using a muscle that is weak, it normally hurts a little. Children as well as adults have a tendency to avoid things that cause pain. With that being said, don't push your child so hard that he or she over does it. You want this to be fun, not a punishment.