Physical Development in Middle Childhood

Parents who eat well and are physically active provide great examples for growing children, offering them a nutritious diet rich in vitamins and minerals provides them with the necessary nutrients to support healthy growth and development. Additionally encouraging active play and incorporating physical activities into daily life will help children build muscular mass and increase coordination and develop self confidence. While young children

Transition: Now that we have explore the negatives of our current physical education system lets

Physical Development – This area is only split into two different aspects. The first one is ‘moving and handling’, this means that children must be able to show control and confidence in large and small movements. The second aspect is ‘health and self-care’, this means that children must know how important it is to stay healthy and do regular exercise.

Physical development in children is an important area and is usually expected to happen automatically as they grow. The important areas are gross motor skills,

During childhood our body and mind changes very fast. I believe that nowadays parents focus more on the brain developement of their children than their physical activity. When I was a little girl - over 20 years ago - we spent most of our time outside playing, running and enjoying fresh air and being in movement. Physical activity of children can secure them health and well being in their adulthood as well as teach them a lot of very importants aspects like social relations and behaviors in different situations.

Physical: When a child is born they begin developing strength from large muscles to small muscles. When children are young they need to do many activities to strengthen their large and small muscles. Something I realized is that muscle skill development and maintaining healthy body are essential in life later for reading, writing and math.

This will impact on a child or young person’s intellectual development as they will be more alert and ready to learn, physical activity is also likely to encourage social and emotional development as schools will provide sports clubs and after school activities, giving children and young people the opportunity to socialise and progress in self-esteem.

Physical activity encourages children and young people to develop all their physical skills and to practice the skills that they already have. Your role in supporting a child’s physical development will be to ensure that the child has a wide variety of experiences of being in a safe environment. Any setting should offer a wide range of equipment that can be used both indoors and out. It is considered important that children are given opportunities to develop their gross motor skills indoors as well as outdoors. Such opportunities may be provided by designated areas such as soft play area or by activities such as drama.

Physical activity is an integral part of health and well being in children.Our bodies also require physical activity in order to be healthy.Understanding and supporting physical activity, will help children have the right foundation for a healthy and happy life.Positive experiences with physical activity at a young age promotes the growth if strong bones and muscles, help to develop good posture and balance, obesity risk and chronic disease risk infection are reduced.

"Virtually everything a young child does is affected if physical development is delayed" (Charlesworth, 2000). Adults and teachers need to do everything possible to keep physical development from being delayed. Adults can provide children with opportunities to help them in development.

Because of research Physical development is part of the three prime areas of learning in the EYFS, joining Communication and Language and Personal, Social and Emotional Development, these three areas are particularly important for the learning development of the under threes, this will Secure the foundations for future success in all aspects of their life and learning. Early year’s providers and practitioners are required to enable their environments to ensure that they are giving the children quality experiences and resources to allow them to naturally learn and develop the physical skills necessary to support them throughout their lives. At our nursery we follow the EYFS guidelines which give us the approximate age and what the child should be able to do or aiming towards and what us, as practitioners should be supporting the child to achieve or help them to move on to the next stage. Providing Physical play experiences for the children such as books to explore, messy play, painting, climbing equipment and balls and other equipment to throw, kick and catch will give the children opportunities for moving and handling.

Physical activity also has benefits for children's social and emotional development and cognitive development. These benefits include being part of a team and making friends through group sports, which have a major impact on social and emotional development. The effect of obesity on children is closely linked to many bad health habits such as diet, smoking and drug use which in turn can affect a child's academic performance (Goran et al., 1999). Physical activity, if encouraged at a young age, can reduce the likelihood of children developing these behaviours and focus on their academic performance and cognitive development. As children in this age range are in their fundamental development stage, it is important that educators and parents alike, teach children about the importance of physical activity at a young age in order to prevent health and social well-being problems in their adult years.

This paper is will focus on the influences of physical and cognitive development in adolescence from 12 to 18 years of age. This part of the developmental stage has many factors that affect the physical development as well as the cognitive development in adolescence. In addition to influences of physical and cognitive development this paper will also focus on the hereditary and environmental influences that make up this stage in life.

During the early childhood period, environments should be organized to promote motor development. During toddlerhood the environment should be organized to allow the toddler space to explore and move. Confining the child to a limited space such as a playpen could result in a delay in their large motor skills. (Charlesworth, 2004) The environment for the preschooler should be conducive to learning these skills. Adequate outdoor play time should be allotted for the children to have the opportunity to run, jump, throw balls, and other activities to strengthen the large muscles.

Nowadays, more and more children have obesity compare to the children in thirty years ago. The research showed that children who have obesity in their early age may cause either short-term or long-term consequence. The short-term consequence for the obesity children include low self-esteem and the long-term consequence includes asthma and heart disease. (CDC) The best way to prevent these is to encourage children do at least one hour physical exercise a day within the trained instructor guided. ( Epstein 2014) My paper is mainly focused on how my curriculum promote physical development in a child care center.