The Power Of Proprioception And The Benefits Of Forest School

Today, I’m going to look at the fabled sixth sense- proprioception.

So last week at our summer camp after doing a bit of hanging about in a tree, it inspired in me to show the children the ‘going through the floor trick’
Do you remember this from your school days?

Basically ask a person to lie down and raise either their legs or arms in the air and close their eyes for the whole of this period.
A partner should then hold the arms or legs in the air for around about 1 or 2 minutes.

When the time has passed the partner should slowly and I mean slowly lower the persons arms or legs toward the floor.

Next, something truly extraordinary happens.

What will happen is that around half way down for some reasons the person will feel their legs or arms are about to touch the floor, but infact they aren’t!

The person believes their arms or legs are then going through the floor.

The feeling is so distinct I can remember it like it was yesterday. Why this happens personally I have no idea.

After a little bit of uncertainty, after the children tried it for the first time, they wanted to do it again and again.

It got me thinking about one of the least spoken about and perhaps least understood sense; proprioception.

How Does 6th Sense Do?

Often called our sixth sense, proprioception is the feeling of pressure in the joints, ligaments and muscles of the body as when we jump, push or pull something heavy.

The cells of our body that sense proprioception are called proprioceptors.
These are located in our muscles and joints and they process sensory information when our body moves. The stretch on our muscles and the position changes of our joints that occur when we move is called proprioceptive feedback.

This lets our brain know where our arms, legs, and body are at any given moment, which is important for our coordination. Your child develops this from activities like jumping, stomping, crawling, climbing, pushing, pulling, or stretching.

What Does It Help My Child With?

Children use proprioception to understand, without looking, where their bodies are in space and where body parts are in relation to one another. This is super important for things like balance.

If you stand on one foot and close your eyes, you should feel some movement at the ankle. These are your proprioceptors telling your brain what’s happening with your leg.

They’re also helping other senses to make sure your child doesn’t fall over when they run, balance, hop, skip and jump.

Proprioception also lets them know how much pressure to use when they move and interact with items, with the right speed and the right amount of force required for that activity.

Why is Proprioception Important For My Child?

This is important for most daily tasks, including walking around, sitting up, to giving a hug with the right pressure. If they use too much force or speed your child break things. If they use too little then your child might not be successful. When hammering in a nail, for example, if they hit too hard the nail may bend, but if they hit too softly it won’t go in. Cracking an egg is another great example.

During your child’s development, the sense of proprioception and it’s feedback to the brain, of the information it is receiving, is consistently being learnt and added to with the more and more experience gained, through a variety of different things they do in their lives that stimulate its use.

Now you may think this sense is similar to touch but both are different. This is because with proprioception the sensory information is coming your childs and your muscles and joints, not skin.

This can be a bit tricky to understand at first. The main thing to remember is that proprioceptive feedback comes from special receptors in the muscles and joints which respond to body position and movement. Our touch system, however, responds to anything that touches the skin.

What Happens If My Child Doesn’t Develop Their Proprioception?

There are few movement tasks in your child’s life that don’t rely on proprioception for success and that should hit home how important it is to adequately develop. If the body is not processing proprioceptive input well, then movements are often uncoordinated and can take a lot more effort.

This can be frustrating for children and adults as, even though they are trying their best, their body just responds differently to others.

If your child is lacking proprioception, they will likely over-index on activities that give strong proprioceptive input such as jumping or stomping instead of walking, crashing into things or hanging off of things.

If a child is hypersensitive to proprioceptive input, they may avoid activities that stimulate joints, walk lightly or slowly, use too little pressure during tasks, or struggle to sit upright.

The Benefits Of Forest School

Fortunately, the great outdoors and Forest School specifically are full of opportunities for your child to gather huge amounts of proprioceptive input and exposure so helping them to adequately develop this key sense. It also takes another thing off your to do list giving you more time to focus on other areas.

The reason being that through Forest School’s child initiated play ethos, meaning child choose what and how they learn, and that it takes place in the imaginative wonderland that is a woodland, there are quite literally great opportunities for your child to stimulate their sensory needs, whatever stage they are in their development.

Play choice such as puddle and mud jumping, running and chasing games, climbing of trees, swinging, twirling, zipping and balancing on rope swings and structures, using pulleys, playing with mud and clay, using tools, rolling, hanging upside down and many others all inform and develop your child’s proprioception sense and are constant staples at Forest School because I believe children just know what they need to learn and when.

And, with support, children can be guided on their developmental propriocetive journey by the Forest School leader to take their learning to the next level when necessary. Your child will be met where they are at and are provided with more or less facilitation or help, depending on what they as and individual need.

What a super interesting sense ae. In a future episode I look forward to discussing sense Number 7! Oh it does get even better.

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