Fine Motor Skills

When babies are born, their brain is not developed enough to control this type of movement. This happens with time, as your baby grows.

Fine Motor skills are simply actions that involve your child using his smaller muscles, such as the ones found in his hands and fingers, to manipulate objects of different shapes and sizes.

By holding a small object between his finger and thumb, your child is using his fine motor skills. But it is not only limited to fingers. By using his mouth to taste different foods, your child is also using his fine motor skills.

When babies are born, their brain is not developed enough to control this type of movement. This happens with time, as your baby grows.

Typically, development starts in the head, and then gradually advances down to the rest of the muscles in the body.

This means that babies gain control of their face, mouth, lips, and tongue first, followed by the rest of their body muscles in time.

Fine Motor skills usually start to develop as your child’s whole body gains stability and mobility as well as with his cognitive and social development. They are a critical part of his development as he needs to learn to use his hands competently to be able to manipulate objects and to acquire self-help skills such as feeding and dressing.

If you notice your child trying to accomplish something on his own, encourage him with positive words of reinforcement and show him different ways of achieving his objective without completing the task for him.

At this age, your child is full of energy with an interest in active games and settings. He now has an increased ability to balance and coordinate movements which allows him to perform most ball-related skills. He can also use his fingers intricately to control writing and painting tools, dress and undress dolls and fix/undo zippers and buttons. Activities that can help in your 5 year old’s Fine Motor skill development:

• Encourage him to help in setting the table for dinner
• Ask him to prepare himself for bath time by undressing himself
• Place playdough of different colors on the table and ask him to create a face with all its details (eyes, nose, mouth and ears)
• Allow him to draw pictures that include details. For example, a beach setting with the sun, water, sand and people
• Show him how to play different musical instruments that require different arm movements. For example, the drums and the piano.