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How Fine Motor Skills Build the Brain
I walked into the kitchen to find a pile of peeled paint chips all over the floor, in front of the door, again. Yes, I had a toddler who was obsessed with peeling things. We did our best to feed this need with positive peeling tasks. Bananas, mandarins, and stickers were all relished activities. But still, sometimes I guess he needed more of a challenge and he would head for that door again. Most of the time we caught him before he got started and could redirect him.
This is why parents panic when their toddlers are quiet. Because we know, they could be carefully destroying our home.
They can’t help it. Their brain is demanding that they move. In little ways, in big ways, sideways, upside down, and any other way imaginable. In fact, children’s brains don’t stop demanding this just because they have reached an age where our stunted culture has decided they must sit at a desk for hours and hours each day. No, the brain still demands it.
And when they are teenagers, whose brains may have learned to quit asking for movement, because they never got what they wanted from it anyway (which was nothing less than to build up more neurons, white matter, and BDNF), they still need to move. Just as surely as they need to eat and sleep.
And I don’t mean the walk between the refrigerator and the couch. I mean, getting…
