Many children end up in physical therapy for basic things like walking (!) because their parents made mistakes during infancy and early childhood.
I hope this post helps you as you try to help friends, family, and students. I know a lot of the teachers out there are frustrated, so I added links for my suggestions.
In the video, I guess therapy is better than nothing…but this therapy session needs improvement.
Prevention:
Infants and children need only a car seat. Leave the car seat in the car. Avoid using the car seat as a carrier or place to park a sleeping child. The shape of the seat is wrong for developing bodies.
Never swaddle or restrain a child during sleep. (I know bloggers love the kickbacks on those pricey devices, but they never show the formerly-normal children in therapy to walk.)
Do not do any “exercises” for mobility with infants and toddlers. They must work on their own with their own body weight.
Keep children barefoot without socks when indoors.
Never put socks or shoes on an infant.
Never have children sleep in socks or other foot coverings. They slowly deform the feet.
Seek barefoot spaces outside.
Throw away all “containers” for children. If they cannot walk yet, they need a clear floor space to move. There are piles of things that are sold to “help” children sit, stand, and move. They all need to go to the dump.
Focus on nutrition. Do you see how weak the boy in the video looks? I guess that’s his family member, slumped in the back of the room…
Therapy:
Follow the steps outlined above.
Start on the ground. See the video, the child has no control of his body, so it is counterproductive to have him swaying on his feet in his THICK soled shoes with overly narrow toes.
The child has to move himself, so have him imitate an adult. The adult must move properly. I’d suggest therapeutic massage, swimming, and ground work before walking therapy. He has to master foundational movement before he can truly improve his walking and standing.
The child should do voice training. He doesn’t breath properly.
Upgrade Yourself:
Your child will imitate you, so upgrading your posture and movement is very helpful. It is much easier than trying to fix a child. Plus, the sooner you start, the healthier you will be as you get older. (I am going crazy this week as I see my friends hobbling around with various preventable problems.)
Try Squat University on YouTube for some free material. The therapist is very good. It is important to do body weight and regular weight exercises to build yourself up, and this channel will help you do it in the right way.
Grab a few kettlebells. Toddlers love to drag these around the house, too. Kettlebell exercises are really useful.
Try Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! It is a superb martial art that is perfect to do with your children. Since I’m away from NYC for some years, I follow my former coach online at Renzo Gracie. No need to worry about your skill level. Just jump online and start trying out whatever moves appeal to you. The coordination, strength, and the use of both sides of the body make this a valuable brain-body workout. If you have a class, everyone can learn from the video.
The Gokhale method is useful for your posture and movement. HOWEVER, she does something weird with her feet. Ignore her instructions on feet and just use barefoot shoes or no shoes. I put one useful video below,
Most physical therapists are not very good. I am always disturbed when I see them making basic mistakes. And a big name hospital therapy department is almost certainly mediocre. I will post more on this later, but Squat University has better details than most therapists out there. He has a physical location somewhere, too. After a few sports injuries, I spent years figuring out the whole therapy thing. Now it really bothers me to see the poor care given to children and the elderly (and everyone in between) when there exists a completely better class of care for elite athletes. It actually costs less to do things properly from the beginning.
Well-Rounded Work:
Voice training provides a wide range of benefits. I highly recommend my own beloved coach, Cheryl Porter.
So many children end up in speech therapy when they could do real voice training with a real professional.
Breathing is one of the benefits of voice training. Learning to open one’s mouth properly is another. For schools on a budget, I always recommend signing up for her beginning courses because the teacher’s skill level is vital in the early years. Children will naturally sing on-key, if the teacher is good.