Gross Motor Stimulation for 2-3 Years Old Children

Childhood is a period in which children are growing, learning and exploring all that is seen by them. Development of 2-3 years old children will determine subsequent child development. herefore, parents should give time and attention to achieve optimal child development. This can be done by feeding balanced healthy menu and trained to perform the skills that will be useful for children.

 Gross Motor Stimulation

Basically motor skill has two categories, namely gross and fine. Gross motor skills are skills that involve large muscle groups such as walking, going up and down stairs, running, jumping, climbing and others. All physical activity requires balance and coordination with the other limb.

While fine motor skills is a skill that requires carefulness in perform of the smaller movements. These tasks usually done by hand and the fingers, such as cutting, tearing, writing, folding, assembling and others.

Fine and gross motor skills in children should be stimulated, trained, and developed at any time with a variety of activities or games that entertained them in accordance with their age. Providing appropriate and safe stimulation will allow the child to grow and develop optimally.

In this article I will discuss some ideas for the type of game and stimulation to train the child's gross motor skills. In the next article I will discuss about some of the stimulation that parents should give to 2-3 years old children for the development of fine motor skills.

Here are some gross motor skills that should have been mastered 2-3 years old children:

- Running without falling
- Open the drawer and cupboard
- Bending to pick up an object and do not fall
- Kicking the ball
- Jumping on the spot, with both legs simultaneously falling
- Standing on one leg
- Walking without falling
- Tiptoeing across the toes (on tiptoes)
- Throw the ball
- Climbing
- Rolled
- Walk up and down stairs alone
- Start learning to ride a tricycle

Purpose of Gross Motor Stimulation:

Stimulation should be given to the child to  train gross motor so that children become skilled and agile in various of movements required in adjusting to the environment.

These various types of fun and simple games or stimulation can be given to children to improve gross motor skills such as:

1. Run

Children will be happy to run when it was unable to walk. Help your child to do more of it, such as running with you to make it like a race, of course you should be running at a slow pace like the child's ability. To make the game more fun you could give a little flag that can be plugged into the ground or ask the child to run back and forth, carrying little balls to put into the basket.

Keep your child always be in a safe environment such as in a park or on the grass so that the children do not fall and hit hard. But avoid doing this stimulation inside the house to minimize the risk of an accident in the house.

2. Balance training

Children 2-3 years old are generally already able to walk on their own without anyone's help. Ask the children to walk on the floor that you have given a line with chalk or use a small timber and some brick to make the bridge as an exercise for the child's ability to balance the body. Tell funny sentences that may seem silly like "be careful, if you fall, your clothes wet later" or "be careful when walking on the bridge to cross the river because there are a lot of crocodiles".

3. Roll over exercise

Roll over can be done on the mat (thin mattress) or a large grassy field. This exercise can also be more fun if you leave a towel on the mat and ask the child to roll over to wrapped their body with the towel.

4. Climb the furniture

Children love to climb, climb anything ranging from child’s ladder, furnitures such as tables, chairs, beds and window. Sometimes, after the climb, activity was also followed by jumping from a height onto the floor. It is very dangerous and can’t be taken lightly.

Sometimes, parents think that a bump in the head when a child bumped or dropped, is trivial. Hard bump on the head, it is feared make the blood vessels can rupture. This of course can affect the brain development may even lead to death.

So, never off guard when the child is doing this climbing activity. Safe area for children to practice climbing can be done in a grassy park that certainly provides a special safe playing area for children.

5. Kicking a ball

Provide ball, maybe a light plastic ball or a rubber ball. Put one foot in front of the child and ask the child to kick it towards the target. To make this activity more fun you can also play ball with the children and make a goal for example by using two water bottles filled with water or simply by highlighting the floor with chalk. Should do this activity in a large field so that children can more freely in kicking the ball.

6. Jump with two feet

Jump in place, lift and drop both legs simultaneously. You can help children by giving examples to do it in front of children, or holding hands while saying "one, two, three, jump .. hop ". Or use the palm of your hand that is placed in the air over the heads, and have the children to jump and touch the palm of your hand.

7. Throwing the ball

These activities require coordination between your child's eye and arm movements. You can provide stimulation by asking the children to throw the ball toward you or use a laundry basket as a target. Ask the children to throw the ball with both hands, one hand, and also the right and left hand turns.

8. Standing on one leg

Train child’s standing balance by asking the children stand on one leg for a few seconds while holding on to a chair or table. Then, help the child by holding hands to make small jumps with one leg alternately left and right.

For more fun you can draw  adjacent circles pattern on the floor with chalk and ask your child to jump in circles.

9. Dance

Encourage your child be active more often when watching child music videos on television or hear music played. You can perform dance movements such as jumps, spins, moving the arm up, sideways, or swinging a leg sideways, running forward and backward with the children.

10. Play bowling

This simple game can train and improve the child's hand and eye coordination. With some simple items like empty plastic bottles of mineral water and a ball, your child is ready to play.

11. Tiptoe

You can give examples of how to do it in front of the child and ask the child to imitate what you do. You can also help by holding their hand as usual at first might seem quite difficult for children. If the child already looks quite skilled in doing so, allow the child to do it themselves.

12. Play the drums

Play music like drum can train children’s hand muscle strength. Buy toy drum for your child or make toy drum at home using milk cans or biscuit and pencils as drum sticks.

13. Painting

Provide various colors of paint and some small brush to the child. Teach the names of colors to the children and encourage children to mix colors, let them  free expression. Use white paper or a white shirt unused as media painting. Let them if they use the right fingers in paint rather than using brushes. You can save paper as a shirts or memories can be shown later.

May be useful!