Postural
control: How and why it affects your
child’s health, learning, behaviour & future – written by Tracy Prowse
The
words, “sit up straight” bring back all sorts of memories from my childhood.
Deportment badges and practising walking
with a book on my head were all part of a normal school day for me. Today,
however, we think of these memories with a smile on our faces and cannot
imagine it happening in today’s schools. Sitting up straight at a dinner table
doesn’t often feature, since many of us do not eat at the dinner table anymore.
Instilling a sense or awareness of good posture in a child seems to have been
abandoned, perhaps to the detriment of our children’s health. Nowadays,
children are spending more time in a sedentary position than ever before, which
should give us more reason to focus on posture, not less. This article aims to
explain why being aware of your posture whilst sitting and standing is so
important to your health, behaviour and
learning ability and ways to encourage your child to sit and learn in an
optimal way.
Postural
control describes the way muscles work together to maintain and regain posture
and balance, thus liberating our arms and legs to do other things. Gravity, our sensory systems in our joints
and ears (proprioceptive and vestibular), our brain’s ability to perceive the
information given to it from these sensory systems and our innate motor
development (such as balance, coordination and core stability) are factors that
influence the control of our posture. Postural control begins in the womb and
becomes refined with each new learnt task.
It takes 7 years of constant refinement to achieve automatic postural
control and in order to be “writing ready” postural control has to be
adequately consolidated and automatic. However, for some of us, this ability to
control our posture is not automatic and perhaps was not ever consolidated as a
child and there can be a number of reasons for this.
One
reason is that some of us are born with what seems to be loose, floppy muscles
and joints. The medical term for this is hypermobility, which means “more
movement”. It is characterised by weakness or laxity (looseness) of the
connective tissue in our body. Connective
tissue’s function is primarily
to support, anchor and connect various parts of the body and is found
in muscle, ligaments, surrounding organs and even in bone. Therefore, if one is
born with a predisposition towards connective tissue laxity, they don’t have a
natural supporting and anchoring system to help them sit or stand or move
efficiently. As a result, their muscles need to work a lot harder to support
and move their joints and maintain a posture than someone else who was born
with strong and taut connective tissue system. Children who have hypermobility often
find it hard to maintain their sitting posture for very long and will
constantly wriggle and move in and out of positions or wind their joints up to
the maximum position so that they almost lock the joint. The reason is that the
muscles do not need to work in this position because the joint is locked into a
sturdy position. Typical postures would
be to stand with their knees locked back, hips thrust forward and a larger
curve in their lower back then normal. They also tend to sit in a “W-sitting”
position or if they are at a desk, they will try and curl their feet under them
or around the chair in order to gain as much stability as possible.
Another reason for not having automatic postural control is purely a
lack of practice. Some children are not encouraged to sit at the dinner table
and eat their supper or perhaps they were not interested in drawing or table
top activities as a toddler and so it was never pursued further. The problem
with this is that they never get to practice something which is absolutely
fundamental to learning: the ability to sit at a desk for a prolonged period.
These children will have weaker sitting muscles, standing muscles and writing
muscles than a child who has grown up being encouraged to sit and do an
activity (like scribbling, playing with play Doh, eating, lego, or whatever)
for short periods-progressively getting to be longer periods-since the time
they could sit.
Following on from this scenario, is another scenario where the child
doesn’t seem to have the concentration or ability to focus on one thing for any
period of time. Their attention is constantly moving from one thing to the next
and they are constantly distracted by outside noises, textures, sights or
whatever catches their attention. These children do not gain that automatic and
consolidated postural control because their attention to the task of sitting
has never been present.
Many
children (and adults) who have any of these underlying issues with postural
control can end up with poor fine motor (movement) and sometimes poor gross
motor control. This means that they have difficulty with their handwriting and
other fine motor activities, as well as on the sports field during ball games,
balance activities or coordination activities like skipping, hopscotch, riding
a bicycle. Unfortunately, these are the children who desperately need to
practise their motor skills, yet, due to a feeling of inadequacy or difficulty
in sport or handwriting, choose not to do these activities. As a result, the
weak get weaker, (and the sporty get sportier) and these are the children who
often end up with poor posture, bad backs and a poor self-esteem or
self-efficacy, later on.
In
order to have efficient postural control, the spine needs to be in alignment
with the natural curvatures of the spine preserved, with a stable but dynamic
base of support in the core musculature. This will free up the arms and legs
with minimum effort. Having good postural control strengthens the core
stabilisers (postural muscles) and inhibits the moving muscles (non-postural
muscles). These moving muscles are often the culprits of those aches and pains
one gets when one has a sore back or neck. The moving muscles often try and
compensate for the lack of core stability or core support and they try and do the
work of the core muscles. However, the moving muscles are made up differently
with fast twitch muscle fibres and therefore they cannot sustain the types of
demands that maintaining postures requires. This is why they often get tight
and sore. They are unable to do the work of the postural muscles for a long
length of time.
Having
good postural control, whilst sitting, facilitates proper positioning of the
writing arm. It enables a shift of gaze with minimal shifts in background
posture (“fidgety” kids) and facilitates use of vision and reduces visual
strain and increases alertness and oxygenation and prevents back pain (13% of
children aged 10-16 have significant incidence of recurrent LBP) (Jones et al,
2001). So, how do we encourage good
postural control in our children?
It
is believed that physical activity helps trigger our postural muscles (core
stabilisers) unconsciously. Thus, encouraging a child to do physical activity
is a way of improving posture, since the core stabilisers are the muscles needed
to maintain a good posture. Physical activity is proportional to IQ,
achievement, maths & verbal testing (Sibley & Etnier, 2003)
and research shows that aerobic exercise is beneficial on brain function which
is important for education (Hillman
et al, 2008).
Another
easy way to facilitate good posture in children is to make sure that their feet
are supported whilst sitting. The Erector Spinae muscles (in spine) are
triggered by the sensors in the feet, so without foot contact, the spinal
muscles have to depend on conscious control. It is essential that the child’s
school desk is the correct size and that a child is sitting with a foot stool
at the dining table. You will be amazed at our much longer your child will be
willing to sit still at the dinner table. Sit with knees apart, feet on floor,
elbow at desk level, rest forearms lightly on front table and use light support
for alignment, in order to gain natural curves of spine. Imagine that you are
pulling the top of your head to the ceiling. Size matters when selecting
educational chairs and tables. Age and height considerations are often not
reflected in furniture selection, and consequently the furniture is too big or
too small. Furniture that does not fit the users will lead to restlessness and
discomfort, resulting in a decreased attention span and the consequence is that
one size of furniture will not fit all the pupils who use a classroom; they
need furniture of different sizes or that can be adjusted to suit their varying
dimensions. Desk and chair height needs to be measured for each child and
schools need to make use of wedge cushions and writing slopes for the children
who are not coping with the standard desk structure (the slope enables the
child to keep their hand under the line of writing and the wedge assists the
child to maintain a natural curvature of the spine, thereby stimulating
unconscious core muscle activation).
Ways
to encourage good posture in pre-schoolers are to avoid W-sitting. Encourage
good spinal and joint alignment during play by using cushions, wedges, and
playing in different positions, such as high kneeling, lying on their tummy, on
all fours or standing. Make sure these pre-schoolers have an opportunity to
practise the skill of sitting and building up their writing muscles by setting
goals for them to see how long they can do it for. Ensure that they eat whilst
sitting with good alignment, feet supported and a stable base, but also teach
and instill an awareness of themselves, by being present in your mind with your
child during these activities. In the
same way that we need to build up the strength of the muscles, so do we need to
build up the “strength” of our focus, attention and concentration. The only way
to do this is to engage with your child with mindful awareness of the task you
are both engaging in.
Poor
posture not only leads to a bad back at a later age but even in the young it
can have some negative effects with poor concentration, fidgeting and
discomfort. Ensure your child reads in a supported position with good alignment
or even allow the fidgety child to read with their books in standing on a
recipe or music stand. He or she will be able to move around and fidget whilst
reading. This will actually improve his or her concentration, rather than
hinder it. Incorporating movement into the task of reading might make it more
interesting and enjoyable for them.
Give
your child a stable base of support with cushions under their arms, knees and
head (either lying on a bed or well supported behind the back on the sofa);
arms comfortably supported; both hands on sides of book; Fingers long and
relaxed; plane of book and the plane of face parallel; Nose opposite the middle
of the block of print being read to facilitate easy flow of eye movement across
midline.
If
we can increase our children’s awareness about their posture and give them
responsibility for their exercise and postural habits, then we, as parents are
giving them the best start possible to a healthy future.
Parents
and teachers need to provide good role models to the children; not only with
their own posture, but also, by the amount of exercise and activity that they
do. Encourage your child to walk to school, by appearing excited at the
prospect yourself. Schools need to educate teachers and children about good
posture. Positively praise and reward children for sitting at their desks for a
prolonged period (20 minutes maximum for a grade 1 child; 15 minutes max for a
Grade R child) and build up to that goal. You cannot expect a child who has
never sat down and completed the task of colouring in a picture in Grade R to
then sitting at a desk I Grade 1 for 20 minutes. Persist and insist that they
move about and have breaks throughout the day (send the fidgety child on
errands- they will return more focussed and less disruptive), think about
incorporating a 5 minute stretch programme into your school day, such as the
Straighten Up UK programme (http://www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk/straightenup).
Movement plays an important part in seating. Research has found that “a school
in which movement is supported and encouraged has a positive effect on the
learning ability and attentiveness of the children” (Dr Dieter Breitheckerxi).
Commit to good posture at home and in the classroom and make correct sitting a
key component of all tasks at the desk and try and encourage mindfulness or
awareness in both you and your child regarding their ability to sit. Be aware
that a child may benefit from consulting a physiotherapist or OT, if they have
writing or movement difficulties or you have observed symptoms of postural
inadequacies. And consider implementing a strengthening exercise programme at
the school for the children who are clumsy, floppy, poor posture or uncoordinated,
such as Physifun’s programmes (www.physifun.co.uk/physifunpackage),
so that they can strengthen their core muscles and their moving muscles and improve their
balance and coordination in a structured daily setting.
Tracy Prowse
Physifun Founder
BSc (Physio) Hons UCT, MPhil (Sports Physio)
UCT/SSISA
PhysiFun
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