How to have fun with your Child's Physical and Emotional development

Parenting is hard and so much fun. Learning and exploring with your child at any age is rewarding and exciting as you see and feel new experiences with your children. Here are a few ideas from a chiropractor to enhance spinal health, emotional health, and physical health and development.

1.      REDUCE SCREEN TIME- we are all over ‘screened' and we all need to take a break, unplug and explore the world.

2.      Exercise. Get moving- being upright and physical using the upper and lower limbs in sports and activities- go to the park and get those kids active

3.      Sensory exploration. Explore all the sense with your child Touch, visual, hearing and taste. Go for a walk and get your child to close their eyes and listen to the sounds, crunchy leaves, snap twigs and let them tell you what they hear.

4.      Sensory. Do a sensory walk or path with bare feet (make sure it is safe). We do a lot of hand sensory bins for our children for the hands and eyes, now try for the feet.

5.      Balancing. Work on balancing with feet together eyes closed, try the tree pose on both legs. While doing these try to play catch or get them to read out loud. Exercises like these can be fun but challenging.

6.      Breathing. Teach your child breathing exercises, blowing through a straw, blowing a pinwheel, sniffing flowers, blowing bubbles or whistling.

7.      Gargling. Gargling helps give your nervous system tone. Get your child to start gargling 1-2 times a day.

These are some of the ideas and exercises I encourage the children in my practice, try them with your child and see the surprising results as they learn, develop and grow.

Dr. Joelle Johnson practices at Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, 142 Erickson Drive, Red Deer, T4R2C3 www.family1stchiro.ca 403-347-3261.

Prenatal Massage

While prenatal massage does share many of the goals of regular massage, such as relaxing tense muscles, easing sore spots and improving circulation and mobility, studies continue to show that being massaged during pregnancy can also reduce stress and anxiety and decrease symptoms of depression. It can also have a positive effect on labour and your baby’s health. Recent studies also reveal that hormone levels improve significantly when massage is used as part of prenatal care, especially those hormones associated with relaxation and stress.

Other benefits of Prenatal Massage are:

·         Reduce any swelling in your hands, feet and ankles

·         Lessen sacroiliac joint pain, the most common lower back/hip pain that usually flares up in the second trimester

·         Ease muscular discomfort in areas such as your lower back, legs and feet

·         Relax tense muscles in your shoulders and neck

·         Relieve cramping in your legs

·         Increase flexibility

·         Ease headaches

·         Relax and de-stress

·         Decrease insomnia

·         Increase oxygen in the blood

Guy Lacoursiere, RMT practices at Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, located at 142 Erickson Drive. Call 403-347-3261 to book an appointment or visit us online.