Young children have a mandate to master their world through direct action. How often you have you seen your toddler try to push the full shopping cart – and be crushed if you don’t let them?
Push activities not only create strength, but also give your child a clear body map. When your child pushes, she feels sensations through her muscles and joints. Gradually your child builds up a body map, shaped by her activities. With a clear body map your child experiences a secure sense of self – directly rooted in the experience of her own body every day.
A clear body map is three dimensional in the full range of motion, up, down, forward, back, side to side, diagonal, upside down – all over the map. Your child relies on his primary reflexes to begin creating his body map during the first year. Over the next few years, throughout early childhood, your child’s increasingly complex movements provide him with a more robust and nuanced sense of himself. What a sense of joy and satisfaction your child has when he meets and masters his world.