The vestibular system is a system that sits in the inner ear and helps to regulate many things within the body – most of all our sense of balance, which direction we are traveling in, which way is up and how fast we are going.  It is a system that integrates visual, muscle and hearing to give our body the necessary messages in order for us to react appropriately and not fall over.

Here are some suggestions on how you can help the elements of the vestibular system.

Visual

“Vision allows the brain to orient the location of the head or body by sight.

• When the head turns to the left your eyes typically follow around to the left [Mobility/Ocular Motility].
• Once your eyes settle on a target [Mobility/Ocular Motility] your brain uses this information as a reference for your balance system.
• However, conditions that reduce visual acuity will affect the ability of the eyes to locate an appropriate visual reference. Improper eyeglass prescription, glare from reflective surface, and eye disease such as glaucoma and cataracts can reduce the accuracy of your visual acuity and impair your reference for proper balance.”

Muscle Tone, Balance and Proprioception

Things to Avoid

• “Reduced circulation to the feet and legs often results in loss of sensation and some loss of stability.
• Broken, healing, or repaired bones can reduce flexibility and impair the ability to walk sure-footedly on different surfaces.
• Ongoing medical disease such as diabetes and peripheral neuropathy often has a great impact on a person’s ability to accurately sense changes in surfaces such as angle of pavement and texture of surface. The improper detection of surface changes can result in a fall.”

Suggestions

“The Proprioceptive System is part of the vestibular system, where special receptors in muscles and joints travel quickly from the cerebellum to enhance tone and joint stability.

• Performed by a person during push-pull activities, proprioception is a calming, safe input to use with a child who appears disorganized. This input doesn’t reverberate in the nervous system for hours like other sensory input, so it is the essential component of a child’s ‘sensory diet‘. It is important to reintroduce the input often, throughout the day.Heavy-work input releases serotonin which sets the firing levels of all neurotransmitters.
• Many children experience body awareness for the first time when they start to wear weighted backpacks, vests or blankets. This is an important strategy used often in therapy.”

Auditory (Inner Ear)

Description

“The ear, or vestibular system, accounts for 60% of proper balance.

The vestibular system is located in the inner ear and responds to movement in three planes of movement: vertically up and down, horizontally left and right, and over the top of the head from left shoulder to right shoulder. These are the same references for air flight; pitch (vertical), yaw (horizontal), and roll (over the top).

Each time the head moves there is corresponding movement of fluid in the vestibular system of each ear. This movement of fluid allows each ear to sense how far the head has moved and with what velocity.”

Things to Avoid

“Occasionally virus, infection, or injury can affect the sensitivity of this fluid movement in one of the ears. When this occurs the brain receives unbalanced information from each ear and is unable to determine which ear is providing accurate information. However, so long as the visual and proprioceptive systems are working properly the brain can gain an accurate point of reference and prevent a fall. However, the person may still have a sense of spinning or movement. Ongoing and fluctuating ear disease such as Meniere’s Disease can greatly effect balance as well as hearing.”

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The single most important things you can do for your child to positively influence literacy and language acquisition is read aloud to your child on a daily basis.  This simple activity prepares your child for reading and other curricula areas by helping them gain an appreciation for (and later practice with) the following:

• sequencing
• language
• rhythm
• connection between print and the spoken word
• word syllables
• patterns
• variety in pitch

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SEQUENCING

Sequencing is an important skill needed in English, reading, math and science.  It is the ability to know and understand the sequence of events IN ORDER.  A young child may be able to relay events to you, but will often jumble up the order.  Sequencing is developed through story reading by presenting events as a beginning, middle and end – making up a complete story when put together in the correct order.  Being able to retell the story in the correct order in their own words is important (some children will even elaborate on the events, expanding on the ideas by putting their own interpretation on it).  These same sequencing skills are also used in math and science.

LANGUAGE

By reading aloud, your child gets to hear language, its natural rhythms and the natural rise and fall of your voice.  This brings a whole host of benefits in both reading and acquiring language.  A child’s first step to speaking is imitation.  After they can imitate, they then play with language as they become better at speaking and start looking for rhyming words, patterns and rhythm in language.  This play with language builds a strong foundation for reading themselves.  The more they are exposed to someone reading aloud, the more easily they will learn to relate to the rhythm of language itself.

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CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SPOKEN WORD AND PRINT

While the majority of this happens in the 3 – 5 year old child, we can still see evidence of this with very young children who are able to point out the famous “golden arches” of MacDonalds or the K of the KMart every time you drive by.  That is a direct connection between the written word and language.  As you read aloud to your child, if they are able to talk, ask questions about the story and illustrations. The older the child, the more elaborate the responses will be.  What is happening in the pictures?  Why do you think the character went to this place?  This word starts with “S” – can you find other words that start with the same letter?  By drawing this direct correlation between print and the spoken word, you are preparing your child well for reading when they get older.

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There are a lot of toddlers who adopt the behavior of biting. Parents often get concerned about their child and get desperate to stop the action. Some will even resort to biting the child back so they “know how it feels”. This does the opposite and does not stop the child biting but can encourage more of the same behavior.

Let’s look at why toddlers might bite:

• LACK OF LANGUAGE and the ability to explain what they are feeling. This leads to frustration and because they have limited coping mechanisms of control, they lash out, some turning to biting.
• LACK OF LANGUAGE and ability to control other feelings such as joy and excitement. Toddlers don’t always have to be frustrated to bite, they might feel any of the following as an example:

You are standing too close to me

I want to play with you

I am really excited

• OVER STIMULATION from their environment – it could be lights, loud noises, or activity level
• WANT TO SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN - Toddlers are starting to experiment with cause and effect. As a younger baby, they soon work out that if they throw their toy over the highchair, someone will pick it up. This is one of the most common cuase and effect scenarios and we all see babies do it. In the older child (the toddler) they experiment with other forms of cause and effect. While we might panic and see the behavior as serious, we need to try and identify the cause first so we can react appropriately.
• NEED MORE ACTIVE PLAY TIME. If a child is understimulated, this may be a reason for the biting behavior. Often you may be able to redirect the biting behavior with more stimulating, age appropriate play
• ARE TEETHING
• NEED MORE ORAL STIMULATION - In babies, the sensors around the mouth are extremely active and needed for life skills such as feeding. Normally, these sensors around the mouth gradually give way in importance to sensors in the hands (as they develop). In some toddlers, this happens more slowly and the sensors around the mouth do not loose their need for stimulation. In these cases, children can turn to biting as a means of stimulation.

 

SO WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOUR CHILD IS BITING?

It is essential to observe, and analyse why your child might be biting. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What happened right before the bite?
• Who was your child playing with?
• What was happening in the room?
• Who was caring for your child?
• Was your child upset?

IF YOUR CHILD IS ON THE VERGE OF BITING:

• Distract your child with a toy or another form of play
• Suggest ways your toddler may use words instead of biting to get their point across. While this may not happen the first time, this sets up a behavior pattern for them to follow. The more you do it, the more success you will have.   Eg. “Scott, you can use words to tell Janelle she is too close to you. Janelle, you are too close.”The more you reinforce this behavior, the more your child will be equipped to use words.For suggestions on how to cope with biting specifically for the various reasons for biting, see Part 2.

Firstly, there are a few things that you must do that are in common regardless of the reason for your child biting.  After we address those, we will then look at specific strategies for specific reasons for biting behavior.

• FIRST, KEEP CALM. When your toddler bites, your first reaction may tend to be frustration, embarrassment, angry or annoyed.  While these are normal, not giving the behavior attention is really important.  So keep calm when approaching the situation.
• FIRM BUT FAIR.  In a firm but not angry voice, use the words you have choosen to address your child.  Whether it be “no biting”, “biting hurts” or another phrase, use the same words each time.  This reinforces the change in behavior you are trying to make.
• SHIFT YOUR ATTENTION.  When a child bites, it is not uncommon for parents to pay a lot of attention to the child.  Either smaking, chastising or dealing with the “offender”.  Instead, after you have reinforced through your chosen phrase, turn your attention to the one who has been bitten.  Rather than the biter receiving negative attention, the one who was bitten is receiving appropriate attention for the incident.  It needs to be clear to your child that biting does not result in continued attention
• TALK ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE.  If your child is verbal, after you have seen to the child who was bitten, take your child aside and talk to them about what happened.  Give them some strategies to work with if it happens again.  For eg.  “If Hamish takes your truck and won’t give it back, use words to ask him to give it back.  You could say ‘Hamish, please give back my truck.’  If that doesn’t work, you could go and find a grown up to help you.”  Whatever the scenario is, give your child alternative strategies to work with next time.  While this takes time to implement and for your child to build upon, you are teaching them life skills.
• HELP YOUR CHILD TO MOVE ON.  Ask your child what they would like to do next?  What toy would they like to play with?  Would they like to go outside and play on the swings?  Allow them to move past the incident with dignity and to release some of the built up energy from the incident.

 

Remember, learning a new behavior takes time. Your toddler may bite again, so continue watching playtime closely.

Now we will look at strategies for the various scenarios in Part 1.  We looked at a variety of reasons children may bite in Part 1.  If you have not read that yet, go back and re-read that before moving on.  Now let’s look at specific things you can do for each of those situations.

If you think your child is biting because of lack of language you can:

• USE THE STRATEGIES above to help your child use words instead of biting
• PRAISE THEM when they do choose to use words
• HELP THEM to show their emotions in an appropriate way
• GIVE YOUR CHILD AGE APPROPRIATE CHOICES so they feel they are contributing to things.  For eg, what to wear that day, who to play with.  Being able to make choices for themselves sometimes helps alleviate negative behavior such as biting

 

If your child is easily overwhelmed by their environment (lights, sounds etc) you can:

• HELP WITH SENSORY INPUT.  Your child may be unable to deal well with the sensory input that is coming in.  This will mean that they need more opportunities to experience sensory input in an appropriate way.  Expose your child to a variety of textures, sounds, lights, etc in small amounts, watching your child for their response.  If they become too distressed, stop and resume at a later time.
• CREATE A SAFE PLACE.  Create a safe place in your house that may be a cozy corner with pillows, cushions and books, or a play tent – a place where you can go for sensory “time out” for a break.  A place where your child does not feel overwhelmed or on overload.  A place where you can quietly read books together or just snuggle.  Use this place if your child becomes overwhelmed.
• GIVE A BIG BEAR HUG when you feel your child is overwhelmed or about to bite.  This can sometimes help a child hold it together and can sometimes stop the need to bite.
• KEEP VOLUMES LOW.  In the house, keep TV or music volumes low

 

If your child is experimenting to see what can happen you can:

• PROVIDE FIRM FEEDBACK – using the strategies at the top of the page, use the same phrase in a firm but calm voice eg “biting hurts”.
• TEACH CAUSE AND EFFECT.  Teach your child about the cause and effect of biting.  “Because you have bitten Stephie, she is now crying.  She is very said now because it hurts when you bite.”

 

If your child is teething or in need of more oral simulation you can:

• Provide appropriate teethers or something cold (such as a cold face cloth) to bite
• Provide a hard, age appropriate, crunchy snack

 

If your child needs more active play you can:

• Set aside a specific time each day where you do active things
• Have outdoors excursions where you have a treasure hunt, finding certain things
• Play at the park
• Never punish your child for biting by loosing their play time.  This can make the problem worse
• Build activity into your child’s everyday routine.  Eg Jump 10 times before having breakfast etc



Have you ever wondered why when you constantly tell your child not to do something they end up doing the very thing that you just told them not to do? In life, we have all heard of the law of attraction. What you focus on your get.

Some of that principle applies here but for different reasons. With a young child, they will hear the majority of the conversation, usually the last part. Their memories are not as good as ours (except when it comes to something they really want) and their processing skills are not as advanced.

We hear a lot of words, are able to listen to them, interpret them and then respond appropriately. For a young child, their processing is not as developed and so they can only process small amounts at a time. They will hear all of the words, but the parts that get processed are often the last words you said – the ones they don’t have to remember for the longest. So when you say “Don’t touch that toy”, the don’t is the word furthermost away from where they end up and the one that is the most difficult to process because of where it sits in the sentence. They will remember the “touch the toy” far easier than putting the “don’t” in front which changes the whole dimension of the sentence as well. Double processing!

So, if you want your child not to do something, turn it into the positive form of the negative. Instead of “don’t touch the toy” you could say “leave the toy alone.” All words contribute to the same meaning and the last words heard are “toy alone.” Another way of doing things would be to redirect your child and not even mention the toy. If you don’t want to touch a certain toy, simply redirect them by picking up another toy and saying “look at this toy. do you want to play with this one?”

Really take notice of the way you say things when your child appears to not be listening. It could just be that their processing skills are not as advanced and what you are asking is harder for them to hear, process and respond to than you think.

Remember too that processing takes time for a child – we respond in split second timing but for a younger child, it takes longer. Another important point is to not just rely on the auditory pathway. Use eye contact, body gestures, tone of voice etc as well as words to get your child to do what you want them to do.

Play with structuring your sentences differently and see if it makes a difference.

Why do children always move?  Why can’t they sit still?  Movement is essential to children and their overall growth and learning.  When a child moves, they are making neural connections which are necessary not only for movement, but for speech, comprehension, focussing near and far and many other tasks that they will need for school and life in general.

Movement is a child’s way of practicing concepts that are learned.  They experiment and sometimes their body is telling them to move and you can no sooner stop it than hold back the tide.

When a child is learning how to walk their brain is telling them to “walk walk walk walk”.  Their body needs the repetition for the brain to map the movement and for the correct neural connections to be made strong. The vestibular system needs to upgrade and all the muscles and tendons and thousands of messages that run through the body from brain to toes need repetition to be made strong.

The brain will continue to tell the child to upgrade and practice until the skill is learned so let them walk!  Create safe places for them and let them do what is essentially their “work” for those weeks.

The same is true when a child needs to upgrade their vestibular system prior to jumping, hopping or walking on a beam.  They will spin, roll or stimulate the system in similar ways for about 6 weeks prior to the new skill being learned.  It is fascinating to watch and when you know what is happening, you are less frustrated and can provide them with what they need to learn.

* A baby blue whale can gain two hundred pounds a day.

* A lion’s roar can be heard from ten miles away.

* Mount Everest is the world’s tallest mountain.

* In the Bible, dogs are mentioned 14 times and lions 89 times.

* A camel can go without water for two months.

* A tortoise can live to be more than one hundred years old.

* The chemical luciferin makes fireflies glow in the dark.

* The first bicycle, invented in 1817 by Baron von Drais, didn’t have any pedals.

* The first steam powered passenger train was invented by Robert Stephenson in 1825.

* It was Elias Howe, not Whitcomb Judson, who invented the zipper.

* Pinocchio was made of pine.

* Charlie Brown’s father was a barber.

* A fullgrown bear can run as fast as a horse.

* Kiwi birds are blind. They hunt by smell.

* Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.

* The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.

* Bees must collect the nectar from two thousand flowers to make one tablespoonful of honey.

* A group of kangaroos is called a mob.

* A group of geese is called a gaggle.

* Reindeer milk has more fat than cow milk.

* The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world — 15 inches in diameter (that’s the size of a basketball).

* A group of owls is called a parliament.

* Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

* A group of ravens is called a murder.

* Almost half the bones in your body are in your hands and feet.

* Libya is the only country in the world with a solid, single-colored flag — it’s green.

* New Jersey has a spoon museum featuring over 5,400 spoons from every state and almost every country.

* New Zealand is the only country that contains every type of climate in the world.

* The parking meter was invented in North Dakota.

I received a call from the local paper this morning asking my opinion on whether corporal punishment should be banned or not. There is a huge media uproar in Victoria, Australia at the moment about this very issue as they try to have it banned. So should it be?

This is a sensitive and debatable topic that doesn’t have a clear and concise answer. What one parent deems as appropriate others will see as a crime. The sad truth is, hitting children or the punishment we dish out is very subjective to our own experiences as a child and how we have been raised.

What one parent sees as appropriate, others would see as inappropriate. If you were raised in a home where you were smacked regularly but don’t have horrific memories of beatings, then you may see smacking as an appropriate form of discipline. If you have never been smacked then you may see it as totally inappropriate.

What each adult sees as a smack is also subjective. There is everything from a gentle tap on the bottom, to hitting a child so hard that they are thrown across the room. If we legislate that there is to be no corporal punishment, both would be ruled out where one may be appropriate. There are parents that NEED the legislation to protect their children and there are others who are parenting appropriately who’s hands would be tied if this law was brought in.

There are many other ways to discipline a child and of course, we all agree that a child has to learn that there are consequences to actions, that is the reality of any good citizen in a society. But I have seen families who NEVER smack their children, but will leave them in a room by themselves (little children) for over half a day with no contact, no food or water. I don’t deem that as appropriate either.

Research as appeared in the London Telegraph suggests that smacking makes children naughtier. Their quote was ”

Children who are smacked are more aggressive and have poorer mental development than those who are verbally castigated, studies have found.”

I wonder if those studies included children who were forcefully and emotionally abused using other means than by physical. I have seen children cower and shrink with parents who never hit, but their verbal and emotional abuse is unthinkable.

We do need changes as children are getting hurt but we can’t forget there are good parents out there who are parenting appropriately and raising responsible, loving and caring children who will contribute greatly to the communities they are part of.

My fear, is that if we legislate, it will not help the problem but drive it further underground, having those that already hurt their children inappropriately do it in ways that it will never been seen – be good out in public, but the child will really cop it when they get home!

We need education. We need to educate parents about what is appropriate, educate them about their child’s development and give them strategies and tools to use to help them. Some parents don’t have those tools as they have never been taught them. Some have to rethink their own boundaries of what is appropriate and may need to make major changes to their own belief systems.

Unfortunately, education is only taken and applied by those who WANT to apply it. We can educate as much as we want but those that don’t want to change or use it won’t. So what do we do? I do think we can’t just sit back and leave it the way it is, something has to be done but I am not convinced that legislating will solve the issue.

I say more education as a starting place and that is exactly what this site is all about. While it won’t change the issue overnight, we still need to praise and uplift those that are doing a great job and encourage those that need to do better. We are in this society together – a village helped to raise a child in days gone by and some of that was positive. I think we have lost that support network for parents and the strain shows.

What do you think?