Extramural

‘Low muscle tone’ is the parental buzz phrase of the decade. It is a condition where the tension in the muscles of the body are not sufficient to assume and maintain a child’s posture.

The body has two sets of muscles. The first set is situated close to the skeletal structures and is responsible for maintaining posture. The second set of muscles are the superficial muscles. They are further away from the skeletal structures and enable movement.

Low muscle tone is a weakness in the first set of muscles. The result is insufficient stability when assuming or maintaining a posture or when performing an activity that requires movement. To compensate, the body increases the size of the superficial muscles to try and give the body more support. This is the reason why some children with low muscle tone appear to have quite an athletic build.

A child who experiences low muscle tone will have to work much harder to compensate for insufficient tone in the muscles. They often experience tiredness, dislike motor activities and battle with gross motor skills.

While occupational therapy is essential for some children, playing consistently can help other children overcome the difficulties of low muscle tone. Although learning about modern technology does benefit your child, too much can be the breakdown of gross motor development. Don’t forget that fine motor and gross motor skills are closely interlinked. Without the proper gross motor development, fine motor skills can also suffer.

We live in a society where, in many instances, both parents have to work and don’t have time to play with their children. If this is the case, you need to ensure that your child’s caregiver or after-school care facilities are encouraging them to learn through play.

Make a little extra time to play with your child. Put aside the strict, disciplined programmes or the educational toys and start kicking a ball around the park or enjoy the swings together. We know that children develop fastest in their first five years of life. The encouragement of play from an early age can prevent and overcome problems before primary school.