You are in love with the soft hands of your child. Right!!! It is quite natural for parents because their hands are delicate and soft. Thus, we want to hold their hands forever. But self-dependency is important after an age. Your kids need to do their regular activity with their own hands, and for that, they need enough holding or grasping ability. Is that true? They will come across many difficulties while performing their day-to-day activities. To overcome those difficulties, they must have firm hand muscles and a strong ability to hold heavy objects. Thus, we always suggest parents focus on their children and young adults’ grasping power and core strength. The occupational therapist and physiotherapist suggest some hand exercises for kids and young adults to improve hand muscle strength and coordination ability.
We found some kids have weak hands due to inadequate hand muscles and delicate fingers. Some children suffer from neuromuscular disorders and congenital disabilities. Therefore, they can not hold an object properly due to a lack of coordination between hand muscle and brain, and they often have lower than average hand strength. There are different reasons available for children’s poor holding ability.
Like us, children should practice gross and fine motor activities to bolster their forearm muscle and finger joints. In this blog post, we will mention some unusual and engaging hand exercises for kids that entertain them and improve their holding ability.
Activities such as:
# Wet sponge squeezing
# Paper crumpling
# Scissor cutting
# Using spray bottles
# Kidding synthetic clay
# Gross-motor activities
Some fine motor activities are specially designed for children and young adults for fine motor development. If you notice your child has poor hand strength and poor fine motor development, seek professional help.
Let’s discuss these exercises one-by-one below:
Paper Crumpling
Kids love to crumple up scrap papers during art and crafts. Crumpling makes them a unique mental satisfaction. They love to do it for an extended period to shape the paper in a round ball. Do you know it is a mild exercise that eventually strengthens children’s forearm muscles? Thus, ask them to make the smallest and tightest ball in a stipulated time. They put enough pressure to make a compact ball. If they can, they have enough hand strength as per their age; but if they don’t or experience difficulties, they must develop gripping power from childhood. Ask them to crumple the paper with one hand at a time. Please ensure they are washing their hands after doing this activity because paper ink is injurious to health.
Squeezing Sponges
Have you ever seen your little one playing with sponges? If he does, then it is the perfect time to take the opportunity. Give a sponge to your kid, it can be a wet bath sponge or sponge for painting. Ask them to squeeze out complete water from it. Choose sponge size according to the kid’s palm size and shape, and it is a super-effective hand grip strengthening exercise that can be done in their bathtub. Most of the children found it alluring. But please wash and sanitize the sponge after activity to maintain good health and hygiene.
Spray Bottles
We have played with spray bottles filled with colored water in our childhood. Those days are so captivating. But it is a good strengthening exercise for small hands. It means we unknowingly develop our forearm strength without putting in much effort. Now the time has changed, and children love mobile games instead of outdoor plays, which in-built muscular inactiveness. Thus, asking them to play outdoors, playing with a spray bottle is engaging. Ask them to water your home garden. For these activities, please buy a high-grade plastic spray bottle and thoroughly cleanse before and after use to maintain better hygiene.
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Scissor Cutting
If your child is mature enough and handles scissors safely, then provide your child enough opportunity to practice paper cutting with scissors. Although scissor cutting is basically performed with tripod fingers, the entire hand will be more substantial through this engaging art and craft activity. Begin the activity by cutting in a straight line before making any art.
Help Your Children Learn Scissor Cutting
Are your children struggling to cut papers with scissors? Do you want to teach your kids how to cut paper with scissors but don’t understand from which point you need to start? Then watch some videos or read some blogs available on the internet which are really helpful for your children. Papercutting not only strengthens your children’s delicate hands but also encourages their creativity.
Playdough Hand Exercises
Playdough is another exciting approach to strengthen kids’ small hands. Ask your little one to knead the synthetic clay or ask them to make a dinosaur footprint to strengthen their forearm muscle.
All these hand exercises are engaging and effective for your kids for strengthening their forearm muscle and finger strength. All these are falling underhand therapy. You can put little challenges day by day and encourage them to put the effort in. After reaching a certain level, give them grip strength equipment; before that, you need to consult with a physiotherapist.
