Can your child hold their head up and track with their eyes at the same time?
Sometimes this might be a challenge! There is a close relation between head control and eye-tracking. We are not talking about the vision itself (that is a topic of another post) but about how the muscles of the eyes are controlled in respect to the position of the head and vice-versa.
Head control is not only how long the child can hold the head up. Real head control implies that the child is able to turn the head and move it around when he/she moves, to track with the eyes in any given position, to adjust the position of the head depending on the demands.
Proper stability between the head and the neck is a requisite for the child to be able to move the eyes freely. When the connection between the head and the neck is weak, then the child rolls the eyes up to help.
Rolling the eyes up is a smart solution your child might use to improve the stability between the head and the neck.
Try it yourself: roll your eyes up, as far as you can, and feel what happens in the back of your head… you feel more tension.
The child rolls the eyes up to create tension and improve stability (you can go back to our previous post where we explain this) https://www.weflowtherapy.com/post/biotensegrity-part-2-understanding-cerebral-palsy
If you want your child to track something with the eyes, and you see they are having trouble with the head, then, support the head! You can use the DIY neck support and you can tilt the chair or stroller backwards to make sure the head is held in place and your child can use the eyes properly.
We see over and over with our therapy how the kids improve head control and gaze with our techniques.
WeFlow´s tip for you!
You can build a soft neck support to help your child develop better head control. Check out our free mini-course and build the support.
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