Poor handwriting?

Is this the regular complaint you get from your child’s teachers at each PTM?

What solution do you resort to ?

Practice ? Great !! As practice definitely would yield desired result. But what if the kids is not willing to practice the writing sheets. The more you force, more retaliation from the kid’s side and ultimately no result.

Here are some quick and practical, tried and tested tips that can yield the same results. The best part is no fancy expensive tool set required.

Before that, for readers who like to have a theory class before practicals, let me put some basics here.

The child’s developmental is often measured against the motor skills he / she has gained. This can be categorised into

1. Gross motor skills – responsible for, as the name suggests, gross, locomotive skills like Walking , running, holding etc.

2. Fine motor skills – responsible for finer functions like to write , this tie shoe laces etc.

We can make the kids practice many other activities that can improve these skills and result in improved handwriting of the child. This is because poor handwriting means poor fine motor skills.

There are plenty of items available in your household that would be a enjoyable play time for the child as well.

1. Kneading flour.

Yup. You heard me right. And this is something the child might even has asked you for, but would have got a straight ‘No !’ as the answer. Don’t do it next time. To save yourself some mess you are leaving a good opportunity for him to improve his fine motor skillls and his handwriting. This can also be replaced / appended with clay modelling . Let home play with kneaded flour / clay as much as likes . Let him make different shapes and have fun.

2. Play time with marbles or pulses.

Let him pick, sort and play with marbles or various pulses. You can have little bowls where he can put the desired number of items and extend this play way for maths concepts as well.

3. Messy sand.

We, in the name of hygiene, often trade off with time tested methods of skill development . Sand playing is one of them. Let him get bit muddy. Trust me it’s fun and skill development at the same time .

4. Strings and board.

Pierce some holes on a cardboard and give him some strings . Let him pass the strings through those holes and explore with various designs / shapes he can think of.

Creative and playful.

5. Massage – Magic of your hands.

Do give his fingers, a gentle and warm massage at bedtime. Any activity done at bedtime has a reinforcing impact as it’s effect extend to the subconscious mind as well. However if you are not able to do it at bed time , let it be any time of the day whenever possible.

6. Last but not the least – your Trust and Love.

If nothing of above works , although highly improbable, but if it happens , this last resort surely won’t fail. You both are trying your best. Encourage him for all the efforts he is making and don’t forget to give him warm hugs as many as possible. He will definitely learn all that is desired, someday, at his own pace. Just have faith in him and in yourself.

Do you find these helpful ? Do write in your comments .

Happy parenting !!

(In the pic above : My daughter enjoying her play time at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. )

Copyright 2018 Parminder Kaur Sharma

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