Lingering effects of lockdown on physical development

Lots of early years practitioners have been telling us that they are concerned about physical development following lockdown.

Three questions emerge:

• Have children missed out on some really important physical experiences at a crucial time in their physical development?

• Is this having a lingering effect on their physicality?

• And, if so, how can we best support them to get back on track?

As ever, we go back to developmental movement theory to look for possible answers.

Different perspectives

The old-fashioned view of physical development used to be that it more or less takes care of itself - nothing much affects it and there isn’t much we adults can do about it. Give a child lots of opportunities to be physi