Kids Today Can Barely Do A Very Simple Thing That Most People Have Been Doing Their Entire Lives, Says Occupational Therapist
ANNA GRANT | Shutterstock Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist, said she has seen an increase in parents' complaints about kids falling out of chairs. Yeah, you heard that right. Kids are struggling to sit in chairs, and Hanscom thinks that it's directly related to not spending enough time playing outside.
Childhood has changed a lot over the years, especially with the creation of new technologies. When previous generations were growing up, there was pretty much nothing for them to do for fun other than go outside and play.
Things are different now. Parents aren’t as quick to let their children go outside and have time for free play because of safety concerns, and a lot of kids just don’t want to go outside when they could play games on their tablet. It turns out that this lack of time to play and explore is actually causing a strange issue that experts are concerned about.
An occupational therapist explained that many kids today struggle with the very simple task of sitting in a chair without falling.
One parent asked for advice on a troubling change they noticed in their kindergarten-aged daughter. “She’s been falling out of chairs a few times a week,” they explained. “Sometimes it feels like once a day.”
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It’s understandable that a parent would be worried about this, and many commenters did suggest the best course of action would be to take their daughter to the doctor for an evaluation. However, many Redditors said this was fairly normal now. Fellow parents and teachers said it was likely due to a lack of core strength and possibly even vestibular issues.
So, why are kids having issues with their core and vestibular system? Pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom said it’s because children don’t play outside anymore. In an interview on the 1,000 Hours Outside podcast, Hanscom said that the biggest issue she sees in the kids she works with is clumsiness, and it’s directly related to the kind of physical activity they engage in.
Hanscom explained that caregivers are worried about kids, but they also aren’t doing much to help the problems they’re facing.
She shared, “The number one issue was the kids were starting to be more and more clumsy. So falling out of their chairs at school is what teachers are starting to report. You know, running into each other, running into the walls even, you know, falling off playground equipment.”
Interestingly, Hanscom explained that forcing kids to stay in an upright position is actually the same thing that’s causing them to fall over when they try to do so. She said that even when kids are moving around, they’re usually still mostly upright, like when they play soccer. This is because parents and teachers alike are concerned about “risky play,” which is the very thing kids need to develop properly.
“As a therapist, what we do is when we treat a child, we try to get them in an anti-gravity position,” she said. “We want them to go on their bellies, we want them to go on their side, and we actually want to spin them in all different ways because there’s hair cells in the inner ear, and we want those to be stimulated. We want the fluid to move back and forth.”
When kids engage in free play, they develop a vestibular sense.
The Cleveland Clinic explained that the vestibular system is what regulates your sense of balance, which explains why kids who haven’t developed this sense fully struggle to stay seated upright.
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It’s easy to worry about kids’ safety when they play outside, especially with today’s news cycle constantly pushing the message that letting your kids out of your sight, even for a moment, means they’ll be in danger. But psychologist Traci S. Williams, PsyD, said this is creating what she calls an “outdoor play deficit.”
It’s much simpler to keep an eye on your kids when they’re inside and looking at a screen, or even to trust that they’ll be alright if you leave them alone for a few minutes. But kids not spending time outside being active is detrimental to their development. Only time will tell how this will manifest in ways other than falling out of chairs.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
