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How Children Develop Harmful Posture and Movement Habits

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My Alexander Technique students often ask me why people develop the restrictive physical patterns that cause back pain or a sore neck or restricted arm and leg movements. The great majority of small children, after all, carry themselves with grace and ease - yet the same cannot be said for most adults. When - and how - does the problem typically begin?

Of course, there are many reasons these restrictions can creep in - the trauma of injuries, physical or emotional abuse, to name a couple of examples. But for the most part, harmful patterns of posture and movement can be traced to two factors: children's unconscious imitation of adults around them and the unintended effects of their early classroom experiences.

When I was training in England to become an Alexander Technique teacher, I can vividly remember sitting at an outdoor pub one Sunday afternoon with another Alexander teacher-trainee and noticing a large group of adults and children at a nearby table. Several of the children were playing games near the table and we decided to guess which children belonged to which parents. Very quickly we associated two little boys who were holding their shoulder's rigidly back with a man who had precisely the same pattern. A teen-aged girl with stooped shoulders and a very tight neck was assigned to a slouching couple.

When the children returned to the table, we were correct in both cases. In fact, you can often spot this sort of thing within a family. Children learn a great deal by observing the people around them and it seems that they are particularly adept at copying patterns that are out of the ordinary, such as an odd walking gait or shoulders dramatically hunched up toward their head.

I'll say more about this in a future article. But for now, I'd like to talk about what happens in the classroom:

When children are old enough to go to school, a serious challenge to their health presents itself: sitting still for what seems like forever - tricky enough in itself - combined with some of the worst furniture design they're ever likely to encounter.

For reasons of economy, and presumably to minimize the work of the custodial staff, most schools today have chosen desks and chairs that are of a standard size and shape, despite the fact that the children using them come in a great many different sizes. Chairs, for instance, are often chosen for their "stackability".

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