EYFS activities - Birth to three… walking

How, when and where their child first walked is a moment many parents remember vividly. It is one of the few movement skills that may be enjoyed by all generations worldwide.

There is plenty of time to allow walking to emerge according to each child’s unique timetable, and forcing it to happen is rarely beneficial. Instead, allowing this skill to be built soundly on lots of rolling, crawling and climbing experience ensures that the necessary overall strength, balance and co-ordination is in place for mature and fluent walking. Walking is a critical factor in ensuring running is acquired without difficulty.

Development

There is a wide time span when children start walking, usually between ten and 20 months. Allowing children to practise walking without overt intrusion has a positive impact on their safety and confidence.

Often devices that are marketed as helping children walk actually do the opposite, so be mindful that:

• Walking requires alignment of the hips and the muscles and tendons around them to be strong and secure. Baby walkers cannot support this.
• The arches in the feet must be strong to ensure balance, and ankle joints stable to push the body forward. Walking devices only need tiptoes to move so leg muscles and tendons remain tight.
• Walking unaided requires balance that relies on good core strength. Sitting in devices requires little from the muscles that support the spine.
  
  

Importance

Walking offers a continual, simple and reliable way of supporting the strength, balance and co-ordination needed to acquire more complex movements. It can be practised daily as a long-term support for overall health and well-being.

Supporting very young children

• However tempting, try to avoid holding children’s hands above their heads, because it doesn’t help them find their own balance. It is better to gently hold around the waist or under the arms.
• Remember that standing and plonking back on their bottoms is an integral part of the walking process and that barefoot is always best if possible. If wearing footwear, check it is the right size and that clothing is not restrictive.
• Try to let them practise when and wherever possible instead of pushing them in the buggy. Children take a lot of steps when they first start walking, around 2,000 steps an hour!
• Children like following the same route every day and investigating the environment – peering through railings, trying out slopes and steps, prodding cracks and sitting on walls.
• As they become stronger and more competent walkers, you can include apparatus, such as small prams to push and wheeled animals to pull.
• Children enjoy ‘tasks’, such as walk to that tree and wait, or walk to the red car and back to me.
  
  

Supporting older children

They are aiming for a mature version of walking – where the toes are pointing forward and weight is evenly distributed over all toes.

At about three years old the body straightens up, and at four years old there is a significant increase in lower body strength. All they really want to do is run as fast as possible! So walking is pretty boring at this age and it is up to us to make it interesting and challenging:

• Use different parts of the foot to walk on – heels or tiptoes, place feet very flat and wide or together and shuffle.
• Think of different directions to move – backwards, sideways, in circles or zig-zags.
• Explore varying speeds.
• Walk like a penguin, duck, soldier or fairy.
• Place one foot in a shoe box and move forwards, then change feet. Can you try two boxes?
• Stand on a tea towel and try to shuffle feet forward and back without falling.
• Explore different gradients and terrains – scatter bean bags on the floor, cover with a sheet and try to walk over them unaided.
• Hold hands in a circle and walk one way then the other accompanied by music.
• Put a line of tape on the floor and pretend to walk across the ‘wire’.
  
  

How we may also benefit

Ideally, have a 30-minute daily walk. Even five minutes at various points in the day is beneficial. Take the opportunity to breathe, stretch and go as fast as you can. Walking is not too stressful for the body and is known to reduce cortisol levels, lift mood and increase circulation to the brain.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

This is the fourth article in a series on essential physical skills and how to support them in children from birth to three. Dr Lala Manners is a physical development trainer and director of Active Matters