PHQP_0027 Coordination Podcast By cover art

PHQP_0027 Coordination

PHQP_0027 Coordination

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 In episode PHQP_0027 Coordination, Jeff discusses coordination. Spoiler Alert--kids need to play more. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0027 Coordination Episode Notes 8 Sensory Systems That Drive Playful Learning DIY | Sensory Play Ramps Hands Grasp Gently Poster The Coordination Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson, thanks for pushing play. On with the show. So, I talk more about coordination. Again, I'm trying to teach myself to play the guitar and I'm an old guy and I thought I was fairly coordinated. But when it comes to putting my fingers in the right place at the right time and making sure the left fingers are in the right place while the right fingers are in the right place while my heel is keeping beat, it's very, very complicated. And it's very, very frustrating. And I'm loving every moment of it. And it got me to thinking about children and coordination because over the last couple years, I've been talking to caregivers, you know, about play and all the other stuff we talk about in this show. And one thing that continues to come up is a lot of long-time caregivers, people who've been in the field for 15, 25, 35 years are reporting frustration with how much less coordinated the children are than they used to be. Somebody in Australia referred to it as kids that got floppy hands nowadays. And I think that's a thing. And, you know, I think it comes from the sedentariness and the screen time and a lot of that. And a lot of the things we cover on the show would address it. But I just wanna spend a little bit of time talking again about coordination. So that's our topic, coordination. So coordination is the ability to execute smooth, controlled movements. And it has a lot to do with proprioception, which we talked about in a previous episode. But coordination also has to do with the visual processes and muscle memory. And there's a lot more going on than just proprioception there. And one of the ways we can, yeah, we're realizing other sensory systems too. I forgot this slide was there. Vision is there, touch is there, the vestibular system is there. All of this stuff is working together. And for all of those things to work together, that's vestibular, the sensory system, that's four of the eight sensory systems at least working together all at once, is they need a lot of practice. And that's what I'm experiencing with my learning guitar is that I've made improvements. But especially because I'm an old guy, I've got this old brain that doesn't make new neural connections nearly as fast as if I was six months old. It's taking a long time. So I can see those slow progressions, but what it takes is repetition over and over and over and over again. And that's what kids need when they're building their coordination and these sensory systems. So our coordination develops from the core out, from our center, and then the big muscles, and then finally out to our fingertips. And so one of the problems, and I've talked about this before, one of the problems, one of the roadblocks to this in a lot of early learning settings is kids aren't engaging in enough big body activity. And if we want them to be able to sit still and keep their hands to themselves and manage a writing utensil, when they get to school, they need to be doing a lot more moving in their early learning settings than they're doing nowadays. They need to be a lot less crisscross applesauce and a lot more rough and tumble play and superhero play and running and climbing and leaping and rolling, spinning, and all that fun stuff. So core outward, if you want to get fancy with it, it's from the proximal to the distal, from the core outward. If you want to impress parents or your coworkers, you can talk about proximal to distal when it comes to coordination development. And this naturally develops, again, via play and exploration.
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