Helping your little ones with a ‘sense of self’

We’ve got five senses – well do we?

How many senses do we have? Ask this question, and most people will come straight back with the answer – five!

Sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Yes, and all of these are correct.

However, many won’t realise that we have at least seven senses: these include our vestibular sense and our sense of proprioception.

Our vestibular sense is our internal sense of balance which enables us to sense movement and motion. It helps us figure out, which way up we are and how to ‘right ourselves again’. This helps us both physically – and emotionally too.

Our proprioception (from Latin Proprius – meaning one’s own) is our internal 3D body map. It gives us a ‘felt’ sense of our body and its dimensions. It helps us feel comfortable in our own bodies and can help us identify when something isn’t right – like an injury or illness.

An awareness of the complexities of our bodies and particularly, in relation to early childhood development, is becoming more prevalent. Both the vestibular sense and proprioception begin deep in our body before they expand and develop into the later skills which we gain relating to body awareness and control – like balancing on one leg for example. And these can only be developed through moving – and moving a lot, in a lot of different ways. Children know this!

These are complicated words for things that come very naturally to children to explore in order to develop. All the activities we do in our classes at Ludus Dance – Space Babies and Mini Movers – are designed to support these aspects of a young child’s development.

Children are biologically programmed to move, wriggle, stretch, roll and get dizzy and fall over lots. All of this is building the good connections between brains and bodies. They are clever little movers!

You can read more about your child’s important physical development in Anna and Anne’s (from Primed for Life) book. Find out more here.