Moving forward

Children of all abilities and ages benefit from physical activity, especially children with developmental delays.  Physical play is a fundamental part of the learning process from infancy up through the pre-school years. Studies have shown time and time again, that early stimulation can make all the difference to effective remediation and development of a happy healthy child.

Included in this article are suggestions for activities that require little or no equipment, have tremendous therapeutic value, and can be easily adapted for children with developmental delays.

Tips & Guidelines

Start with very brief activities so that children can succeed. If they feel like they have accomplished something great, in turn they will nourish a positive attitude towards fitness and encourage advancing in their activities.

Plan physical activities that you can easily incorporate into your schedule. Plan to jog or walk with your child around the block once or twice before heading to the playground. Take your child along when you walk the dog.

Children with developmental delays need lots of repetition so use this to your advantage and motivate them with your enthusiasm. If children see you running, jumping, dancing, exercising, and enjoying yourself, they will want to join in.

Inclusion and a great way to reduce sibling rivalry and promote camaraderie. Children can learn to appreciate that a neighbor, brother or sister is also a playmate and learn to develop stronger relationships with a team spirit in heart.

Focus on fun rather than skill. If kids with developmental delays think of physical activity as fun they'll be more likely to want to do it. When they reach this stage, their finely tuned motor skills might just earn them the title of family activity master and you a place on their team.

The local “dollar” store is a perfect place to find game equipment and prizes for a fraction of the costs of major chain stores. They are stocked with preschool activity books, giant coloring books, chalk, cookie cutters, and treasure hunt items for the bargain shopper.

Activity Ideas:

Begin with warm up routines that include stretching, flexing, and balancing. Help children to compare the feeling of flexed muscles with relaxed ones. This is a great way to draw a child’s attention to his or her body. Encourage children to enjoy their flexibility.

Plan physical activities that you can easily incorporate into your schedule. Plan to jog or walk with your child around the block once or twice before heading to the playground. Take your child along when you walk the dog.

Put on one of your child’s favorite songs and dance around the room to music each morning. Start slow and work up to ten minutes.

Combine music and movement. Give children the chance to be a jet airplane, a galloping horse, or a speeding train.

Set up simple obstacle courses that involve activities like hopping, jumping, crawling, and walking along a line. Or invite other children sharing the same physical level to compete in an imaginary Olympics competition at home.

Consider incorporating daily routines into your active play schedule. For example, ask questions like: “We just finished eating lunch, what should we do next?” Encourage their answer like “wash the dishes” and follow their lead to complete the chore. When they have helped in this activity, reward them with a fun snack or a small novelty item.

Games To Play:

Target Soccer

Line up 3 bowling pins evenly spaced and draw a square four feet in front of this area. Your child can stand at a line 1 foot behind the square. The goal is to knock down one of his or her targets with each kick. Focus on his or her aim with eye and foot coordination.

Charades

Cut out pictures of animals from a National Geographic magazine and put them in a hat. Ask your child to pick one of the pictures out of the hat without showing you the animal. Then instruct them to act out the behavior of that animal. Try to guess the charade. Once you guess the correct animal, switch turns! Now you act out the next animal photo in the hat and keep acting until your child figures out your charade.

Sock the Basket

This is a fun way to incorporate a daily chore with a popular sport. Gather up 4-10 sock balls (two socks folded together) and place the laundry basket five feet away from the tossing line. Hand your child a sock ball and coach them to throw it into the basket. Play along!

Bat the Piñata

This outdoor game allows a beginner to practice hitting a target to win a reward. Hang a piñata over a high tree branch or bar and hand the player a tennis racket to allow for a greater chance of hitting the target. Do not cover his or her eyes. Encourage your child to keep their eye on the piñata while trying to hit the object. You can move the piñata up or down to add challenge to the activity. When the piñata has broken, your child wins a prize for successfully keeping their eye on the target.

Dress Up Relay

Gather up a pile of clothing including large shirts, sweaters, pants, shorts, knee socks and mittens. Ask your child to knee walk, hop, skip, jump or animal walk over to the pile of clothing. Tell them which piece of clothing to bring back to you. If they manage to find the correct item during the first game then request that they dress themselves with each item in the next game.

Red Rover (2 - 6 players)

Rhymes are easy to remember and fun to follow. Encourage your child to make requests using the familiar Red Rover rhyme. For example: “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Jenny crawling right over” and Jenny must crawl from her side of the room over to your side. Then Jenny says to you: “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Mom/Dad skipping right over” and you would skip over to the other side.

There are a variety of movement patterns that can be requested to each member: rolling, crawling, knee walking, animal walking, jumping, hopping and skipping.

Take the Yellow Yarn Road

Pick up 20 yards of yellow yarn and creatively weave it in and around your furniture, corners, and in different rooms keeping the yarn on your floor. Consider arranging the yarn path in the following patterns: loops, zig-zags, and or forward – reverse directions. The goal is for your child to follow the “yellow yarn road” without stepping off of the yarn.

For a bit more fun and challenge, play a song on the stereo and inform your child that there is a prize waiting for them at the end of the “yellow yarn road.” If they reach the end of the yarn road before the song ends, the prize is theirs. Cheer them on to help them retrieve their gift prize.

Spot Light Tag

Find two flashlights and hand one to your son or daughter. Turn off the lights (night time only). Ask your child to follow your beam with their flashlight moving left to right on the wall. Build this activity into a game by giving a prize if they catch up to your light on the wall.

Jumping Rhymes (1 – 4 players)

Place a rope or masking tape down on the ground to create a zig zag line. Your child can jump down the line of the rope or tape on each side while a rhyme is recited. With each word of the rhyme, they jump one jump. When they reach the end of the rope or tape, they can about face and go back the same direction they came.

Many rhymes can be used to enlist the coordination skills of small children. Try this rhyme to start and eventually motivate your child to make up their own.

Spanish Dancer

Not last night but the night before,
Twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door
As I ran out, they ran in,
(The jumper runs out, then in again)
And this is what they said:
Spanish dancer, do the splits,
(Jumper jumps wide)
Spanish dancer, do high kicks,
(Jumper kicks will jumping)
Spanish dancer, touch the ground,
(Jumper touches the ground)
Spanish dancer, run out of town.
(Jumper runs out.)

Family Fun with Fitness:

Planning regular physical activities as a family will accelerate the learning curve for children managing with development delays. Going on an after-dinner family walk three days a week or parking farther away from the store and walking are ways to make activity part of your daily family routine. Persuade your child to participate in chores that involve physical activity such as cleaning, gardening or walking the dog.

Try exposing children to a variety of physical activities and allow them to choose which ones they like best. Use fun physical activities as a reward. When your family reaches one of its goals, celebrate with an outing like miniature golf, visiting a water slide park or a day at the beach.

If kids think of physical activity as fun, they'll be more likely to want to participate. When they reach this stage, their finely tuned motor skills might just earn them the title of family activity master and you a place on their team.

Physical Play & Social Development

Physical cooperative play is an excellent opportunity for social inclusion, and a great way to reduce sibling rivalry and promote camaraderie.

Take advantage of neighborhood playgrounds, pools, parks, and beaches to encourage your kids to play outside with other children. These are all great places to promote unstructured group activities with kids.

Focus on friendship and fun rather than on accuracy and skill. Children can learn to appreciate that a neighbor, brother or sister is also a playmate and helper. Learning an appreciation for others is a fundamental building block to developing stronger relationships as children grow to adulthood.