Helping Your Child Develop their Fine Motor Skills

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Fine motor skills are how we all manage picking up objects, holding onto things, picking up new skills and more. It’s how we all manage everyday tasks so easily, which is where children will know more about why their fine motor skills will be important to develop as they get older.

Here are some tips to help your child develop these skills.

Start small

As a toddler, and even as a baby, your child will be curious and pick up a lot of different objects, both big and small. Teething products, toys that make funny noises, or have unique textures, will interest them heavily and you can use this to your advantage.

This is why starting small will help your child learn to pick up their skills in using their hands and fingers better. Small toys, soothing toys and other child-friendly devices will be where your child will normally begin. So long as they are safe for them to pick up, allow them to explore these things naturally with their hands.

Use play dough

A common material used by kids is play dough due to how it can make any shape and can be broken up into smaller pieces, rolled out and put back together again all very easily. It’s a great route for children to see what they can make through the power of their hands that doesn’t cause a lot of mess and can be reused again and again.

Water play

Another area children can explore is water play, where you can set up a small swimming pool in your garden or make a set up in the bathtub. You can use cups and jugs to imitate the flow of water at different heights in your child’s hand, and volumes of water if you have varying sizes of cups and jugs. This helps your child learn how to hold these objects in different ways and understand what is involved in the weight of water. Further to this, encourage your child to push their hands through the water to better understand the feeling this liquid can have.

Fine motor skills are what we all rely on, so it’s worth giving your child the freedom to develop theirs as soon as possible. Every school will recommend this; just as this nursery in Richmond says – our fine motor skills are integral to completing the vast majority of life tasks. So, indulge your child with a variety of games, play time and other unique opportunities for them to use their hands. So long as they are safe and child friendly they will help your child with their physical development in many ways.