Kids aren’t writing as much as they used to. I grew up in the 80’s (before dinosaurs roamed the earth) and back then we all used a pen or pencil for doing pretty much everything. We wrote notes to our friends on class, we took a message on the phone for our parents (which was on the wall by the way) , we make grocery lists, we wrote a lot in school. Like A LOT. We wrote for math, english, spelling, social studies, the bathroom pass, a hall pass. Whatever we wrote because there weren’t any other choices.

Now kids do write a lot in preschool. Which is really a whole other blog post but let’s just say writing in preschool is about 2 years too early. Hand mechanics wise. Not that their brains can’t learn letters and numbers or that they can’t express this knowledge in some other way. It’s just that writing with pencil or marker that doesn’t fit their hand before age 5 is just the icing on the cake called “hand pain”.

Kids begin to use pencils, markers and crayons in kindergarten. In kindergarten, many kids know their letters and numbers. Some kids can write them. Some can read. But many do not. And that’s ok. Some kids know the names of them but can’t write them. Some kids can write them but can’t name them. There’s a variety of things kids are doing with letters in kindergarten.

If your child has just finished kindergarten and they are not wanting to participate in writing, coloring or cutting, then we need to get to the bottom of why. Does their hand hurt when they perform these activities? Do they feel not interested in fine motor tasks?

There many reasons your child’s hand may hurt when practicing handwriting. Typically, it is from decreased strength. The hard part is that the strength isn’t just from the hand. It is from the core, shoulder, forearm, wrist, and then hand. We talk in Occupational Therapy about proximal stability before distal mobility. Meaning, you have to have a strong base of support in order to have string fine motor skills. You also have to have strong interest in and attention for these tasks.

All of those areas need to get strengthened.

Reduce Handwriting Pain By Increasing Strength

Overall, you wanna work on things that include strengthening 3 major areas:

Shoulders–

Prolonged use of the arms held in a vertical fashion-

think throwing a ball against the house multiple times without bringing it down.

Using a zoom ball between two people.

Holding a plank position while participating in a throwing game.

foam sword fighting.

batting at a pinata

tetherball

Forearm muscles–

Coloring on a vertical surface- tape the paper up on the wall and then color.

Laying down (face up) on the floor and then coloring or painting on paper taped underneath a table.

Rolling out playdough.

Using dice or small cubes to stack a tower

Playing with a marble maze

Playing dominos

Intrinsic hand muscles–

These are the hand muscles that support the pencil as it moves dynamically by the fingers.

Games that involve dice such as Animal Snacks, My Mine, Clover Leap, Hook ’em, Whirly’s World, 15 to Zero, Shore Seekers,  Rolling Bones.

Rolling metal medicine balls in your hand and moving them in a circle

Using clothespins to pin up socks or your towels or whatever else can be hang dried.

spinning tops such as mushroom spinner tops or bey blades

Want the TRUTH??—The more you practice writing, the less handwriting will hurt. I know, not the answer you were looking for.
Need some fun ideas to help your kid practice their handwriting? Check out my blog post for some ideas!

Sadly, it is a double edge sword. The mere fact that we have keyboards and we don’t write as much is just dragging our poor little hand muscles down.
So, basically, if you’re typing a lot; you’re going to have hand pain when writing a lot.

So make a habit of writing a little bit everyday-poems, journaling, copy something you’ve always wanted to learn.

Looking for support with yuor child’s handwriting? Contact us!