Posted by: Alesia Netuk

Updated: October 2nd, 2023

Key Factors of Gross Motor Development

Key Factors of Gross Motor Development

Watching your child develop and grow right before your eyes is truly a remarkable and extraordinary experience. Every part of their day helps them gain more and more skills for their lifetime, especially in their gross motor development. But, what exactly are gross motor skills, you ask, and why are they so important for your child’s development? That is why we are here. In this article, you will learn why gross motor skills’ development holds such fine importance for your child, how they develop these skills in their everyday lives, and techniques you can use to help you improve those motor skills in your child’s development as well. With that said, let us five in and learn all there is to know about your child and their gross motor skills.

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Why Gross Motor Development is Important

As we stated before, gross motor skills are a key factor in the overall development and growth of your child. In short, gross motor skills are the skills that children acquire in order to perform actions that require the larger muscles in their bodies, such as those in the arms, legs, and torso. The ability to perform these actions allows your child to develop overall more control of their body when crawling, walking, jumping, and other larger actions during their day-to-day routine. Some children tend to develop these skills much more quickly than others, especially when it comes to walking and crawling. However, there is no need to be discouraged if your child seems to be having a slower time with these skills as each child is different and develops at their own pace.

The skills that are developed when it comes to gross motor skills often are divided into types of subcategories. For example, you children develop body awareness skills, which would include everything from running to crawling, jumping, spatial awareness skills, involving the ability to move in various directions without losing the sense of stability and balance, and relationship awareness skills, which is commonly seen as how the different parts of the body relate and interact with each other when your child is performing activities like catching a ball.

Gross motor development skills can also help your child form a better understanding when it comes to health and personal fitness, as performing the various activities that help to acquire these skills can help children from overeating and not exercising enough at that young developmental stage. By teaching them these skills from the very beginning, you can help your child to lead a more healthy and happy life in general.

Types of Gross Motor Development

  • Body awareness (participating in activities involving moving: crawling, running, and jumping);
  • Space awareness (moving in different directions);
  • Relationship awareness (relating one part of the body to another while moving jumping from a height, moving through the tunnel, balancing, catching the ball);
  • Health and fitness.

Strategies to Improve Gross Motor Skills

If you find that your child may be developing a little more slowly than the others his or her age, there is no need to fret. However, there are different strategies, techniques, and games that can help your child to move in the right direction.

By promoting the sense of play and activity each day and practicing the basic skills like walking and catching a ball, you will help to improve their underlying skills as well as the muscle strength they need. Performing and practicing these skills can also help to improve their attention and allows them to also begin to develop some of the fine motor skills and sensory play that they also need for their development as they continue to grow.

  • Improve muscle strength;
  • Promote underlying skills (body awareness, space awareness, relationship awareness);
  • Improve attention;
  • Promote sensory play.

Gross motor skills are so crucial for your child’s development, and you can help them to develop and grow more and more each day by practicing these skills with them as often as possible. It may not seem like it at the time, but your quality time and practice with them make all the difference in their pace of development and how they grow up in general. Spend time with your hidden, and help them to master their gross motor skills in no time!

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