"Mother Knows best"

If you have any of the following concerns about your child, you should contact the clinic for an assessment.

• flat feet
• growing pains
• clumsy
• incoordinated
• overweight
• lazy
• not interested in sport
• not good at sport despite being keen and interested
• walks or runs funny
• pain in feet, knees, legs, hips or low back
• round shouldered
• headaches
• neck or shoulder pain
• poor posture

Too often when children complain the parent is told that it is just "growing pains" or that the child will "grow out of it" We however believe that if a parent feels there is a problem with their child they are usually right.

These problems may appear to resolve for a period of time as the child grows, but can frequently come back to haunt them in a different form later in life.

EXAMPLES

1. If a child has flat feet, when they walk long distances or run, their calf muscle will have to work extremely hard to bring the foot up from a flattened position to a functional position, and this over working of the muscle may present as pain in the muscle when the child goes to bed that night. This is commonly labelled as "growing pains", however it can frequently be treated with stretching and strengthening exercises and sometimes the provision of insoles or orthotics. If untreated it will result in poor gait pattern and as a result poor control of trunk and all the problems that go along with that. See (2) below.
2. A clumsy, incordinated child or one that is poor at sport may be because they have poor support for their trunk (poor core stability) This is a huge problem for many children today and is a direct product of the society in which we live, where we need to know where the child is at all times and can not let them wander off and cycle on their own as previous generations could. These children will frequently benefit from our back classes. click here for more information.
3. Obesity is a huge problem amongst children today. It is not recommended by nutritionists that children go on diets to loose weight, but rather that they grow into the weight they are. They ideal way to tackle this is by structured, and monitored exercise programmes.
4. Round shoulders, poor posture and headaches can all be related to trunk control and core stability, and so will benefit from back classes as in (2) above.
5. Children, like adults can suffer from pain associated with myofascial trigger points, click here, and will respond positively to treatment of the same as well as from ergonomic assessments.click here