In May of 2019, Arnold Schwarzenegger received an unexpected and powerful blow to the back while in South Africa.  If you saw the video, it was an impressive kick, delivered skillfully.  Most people would have been flattened by it, but the 71 year old withstood it almost as if it were a pesky fly.  One reason why?  The man is in incredible shape.  More muscle allowed him to withstand an unexpected blow without being taken down.

I have blogged on pouches and their negative impact on both speech, palate development and the number of calories they contain.  Sweet ’n’ Speech: Big Impact, Little Pouch hit a nerve with preschool directors and teachers, a number of whom asked for pdfs to send home with kids and links to post in their school’s social media.

At the suggestion of one director, I am following up with critical information on grip strength, rather, the lack thereof, in today’s children. 

The general thought may be:  who cares about grip strength?  Sure Arnold Schwarzenegger could probably rip a phone book in half (if we still had them) with his bare hands.  But who really needs to do that?

Right.  No one.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t need it.  And what is chilling is that today’s children have far less of it than their parents and significantly less than their grandparents.  Believe it or not, grip strength is vital to a child’s development and success in the classroom.  Grip strength allows children to hold a pencil.

Again, possibly the thought is crossing your mind: we use keyboards today more than we write letters home, so a weaker grip isn’t that big of a deal right?

Nope.  It is a huge deal.

The pincer grasp is the index finger and the thumb coming together in a coordinated way.  This grasp is what babies begin using when they are picking up their Cheerios between 9-10 months, requiring both skill and strength.  Occupational therapists today, however, are sending up an alarm that this crucial skill is being missed by many children leading to delays down the road.

Why is it being missed?

Past generations spent preschooler aged idle time threading beads, marking up paper with crayons, manipulating legos and pipe cleaners, playing with puzzles, all play that requires pincer grip, skill and strength.  Children today however, are spending time on tablets and smart phones instead, swiping and tapping instead of pinching and griping.

Think about it in these terms:  a child goes to elementary school with weak grip so he struggles holding a pencil even though he is nimble on the tablet or joy stick at home.  But there is no getting around the fact that in elementary school, we have to learn to spell and communicate and the best way to master this is to write.  Children desperately need grip strength in order to hold a pencil for the development of communication from expressive language to written text.  But if a child can’t write, he is going to lag behind his peers.  Imagine what this does not just to his grades, but his confidence.

And it is not just academics.  Children need pincer grip and grip strength to button their clothes, tie their shoes, buckle a seat belt, use a fork and knife.  These are fundamental life skills and failing at them can be discouraging.  No one wants their mom tying their shoes forever.  But children today are coming to preschool with fewer of these basics in their toolbox.

Ten to fifteen years ago the children referred for occupational therapy for poor grip strength had a specific underlying diagnosis, like spinal bifida, cerebral palsy or Down syndrome.  Today children are being referred for grip strength occupational therapy with no underlying diagnosis, they simply have not developed the grip strength to hold a pencil at the developmentally appropriate time, putting them at risk for reduced academic success.

And there is an emotional component as well.  Pencil mechanics, driven by grip strength, are directly related to building a conversation across the corpus callosum which allows the right and left brain to work together.  Young children are right brain dominant — the right brain is where our creativity lives.  But as they get older, they must put the left brain to use and incorporate it’s strengths not just into their educational tool box, but their emotional tool box as well.   If they cannot make the leap to a right brain-left brain co-working situation, they are not beginning the foundation for higher learning and developing the appropriate neural pathways to begin complex thought.  If they continue to live predominantly in the right brain, they will have a hard time with attention and focus, sitting still, listening to adults and with emotional grounding.  The stress of asking the right brain to do things that the left brain should do will set the child up for stress and anxiety enhanced by failure to achieve what is expected.  This is devastating emotionally and will take a toll on academic progress as well.

Holy Cow!  Is There More?

You Betcha! Grip strength it isn’t just about grades, behavior and academics.  Grip strength in adults is a commonly known indicator of long term health.  A first ever study examined the same relationship in children.  This study from Baylor University, published in 2018, examined the grip strength of elementary age children and found that 27.9% of the boys and 20.1% of the girls fell into the category of weak.  As researchers followed these children over time, the children with weak grip had poor health three times more often than their peers with stronger grip.  This directly mimics what we have known for years about adults and the relationship between grip strength and long term health prospects.

So How Did We Get Here?

One factor is the reduced amount of tummy time many children had as infants.  In the ’90’s pediatricians began recommending babies be put to bed on their backs to reduce SIDS deaths.  It worked, but with reduced tummy time, strength delays in children have been on the rise.  And this includes the development of grip strength which is greatly improved when babies use their hands to push their heavy heads off the floor to look around.

Compounding that is the amount of time children spend with technology rather than traditional play.  By the nature of the beast, when using technology, we are not moving, we are not getting physical, we cannot build strengths.  So with increased technology use and less time in play with pull toys, balls, monkey bars, playing on climbing equipment, slides and swinging, children are not developing strengths they need to learn and grow. 

In previous generations, when young children were in need of entertainment, they were sent outside to play, were given fat crayons to color with, blocks to build with, books with real pages to pinch and turn, toys to assemble and disassemble.  Today’s children are more often than not given a phone or tablet for entertainment. 

What Do We Do To Turn Things Around?

You may have seen the video of the toddler who, when given a magazine, didn’t know how to turn the pages and rather tried to swipe them instead.  Some found the video funny while others, mostly teachers, found it shocking. 

If we want to change course and set kids up for academic and emotional success, then limiting technology time is critical.  Trade this time instead for outside play on playgrounds where children have to grip slides, ladders or rock climbing walls.  Think about having children drag large logs across the yard, pull sleds full of friends in the grass, dig holes with a shovel or hands or even help put the trash out!  Instead of a tablet, how about crayons, beads to thread, something to cut with scissors or even a counter to clean with a sponge.  It all worked well for our parents and grandparents.  Clearly there is a reason.

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash