What are Gross Motor Skills?

As your baby grows and starts to investigate their surroundings, they develop new skills. Gross motor skills are one set of skills they’ll add to their repertoire of tricks right from the start.

Let’s take a look at some of those skills, as well as what to do if you suspect something might not be quite right.

What it means when we talk about gross motor skills

Gross motor skills are those skills that involve the whole body — your core muscles (think belly and back) and the muscles of your arms and legs.

Gross motor skills include skills such as:

• sitting
• standing
• walking
• running
• jumping
• lifting (a spoon, a hairbrush, a barbell — they all count)
• kicking

Yup, these are actually skills.

And then there are the skills that need, well, a little more skill:

• riding a bike or a horse
• playing sports like football or baseball
• roller blading
• swimming

When your child uses their gross motor skills, they’re also working on balance, coordination, hand-eye coordination, and strengthening the neural pathways in their brain.

Gross motor vs. fine motor skills

You’ve heard mothers at the park tossing these terms around with the same nonchalance they use to toss a ball. So what’s the difference?

While gross motor skills involve the bigger muscles, fine motor skills work the smaller muscles of the hands, fingers, and wrists. Fine motor skills are about dexterity.

Here’s an example, taken from the previous section: Your child uses gross motor skills to lift a hairbrush — but fine motor skills to grasp it in their hands in the first place.

Your child needs fine motor skills to do finicky things such as:

• holding a pencil or scissors
• writing
• cutting
• threading beads
• playing with Legos
• buttoning up their coat

The better their fine motor skills are, the easier they’ll find tasks like drawing and the faster they’ll be able to do them.

But appropriately developed gross motor skills can help your child build their fine motor skills. Knowing how to sit will give your child the ability to be at a desk and practice controlling the movements in their shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers.

Gross motor skills at different ages

Your newborn has a ways to go before they’re crawling. Your toddler has a ways to go before they’re playing baseball. So what are the age-appropriate gross motor skills to look out for at each stage?

What if your child has gross motor skill delays or difficulties?

Always remember that each child is absolutely unique — just like everyone else. Your unique child may not follow given guidelines and that’s perfectly OK. We all develop in sync with our own internal clock.

That said, here are some things that you may want to look out for:

• Your child isn’t interested in the physical activities that their peers are happy doing. In fact, they even try to wiggle out of them.
• Your child goofs up tasks on purpose to mask that they’re having a hard time doing them.
• Your child tells other kids how catch a ball, reach the top of a jungle gym, or skip — but they won’t take part in the game.

When should you contact your doctor about gross motor skill concerns?

If your child isn’t meeting many of the milestones above, you may want to reach out to your pediatrician for an evaluation. Very often, early intervention with a pediatric physical or occupational therapist can close the gaps you see.

Sometimes parents notice that their child has difficulty in many areas of physical activity. For example, if your little one is clumsy, has an unsteady gait that makes it hard to negotiate steps, and can’t manage to tie their shoes or complete arts-and-crafts projects.

When several signs come together, they may signal a condition known as developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Talk to your pediatrician if you have concerns.

Activities to encourage gross motor skills in your child

There are lots of ways you can encourage these skills at different stages.

Preschoolers

Gross motor skills are mostly developed early and, as noted above, involve just the large muscle groups. Once your child has those skills in their repertoire, they can add other layers of skill like coordination, muscle development, posture, balance, and more.

Some examples of building upon their gross motor skills include:

• hopscotch and skipping
• trampoline jumping
• swimming
• playing musical instruments

The takeaway

Accompanying you child through their journey in life is one of the most satisfying things you’ll ever do.

When you watch your child pulling themselves up only to fall back onto that well-padded butt, you may not believe the adage that time flies. But it won’t be long and soon you’ll be eating popcorn on the sidelines while your superstar hits a home run.

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