GM.C.102 STEPS DOWN FROM A BLOCK UNAIDED

This is the opposite skill to GM.C.101 and allows your child to step down from a higher to a lower surface where there is no railing.

How to Assess

Materials: A block, as described in GM.C.101.

Method: Place your child on the block and ask her to step down. Score plus if your child steps down without aid and without overbalancing.

How to Teach

If your child still needs the support of your hand, as well as the rail, when she walks down stair, reduce and eliminate this support now, before you teach her to step down from a block. Use the methods described in GM.C.99. Then progress to stepping down from a block.

As with all stepping-down activities the difficult point is to get your child to pull her weight on one leg and then to bend that supporting leg before gradually transferring her whole weight onto the other leg. It requires considerable strength and control of the thigh muscle, as you can feel yourself if you have to walk down a large number of stairs. The only way to develop this control and strength is through practice so the more times you can get her to perform the skill correctly, the easier it will become for her.

Watch that she doesn’t keep that back supporting leg stiff and try to ‘fall’ off the top step onto the lower one. Initially you may need to place your hand around the knee to help it to bend and to stop it from collapsing once the ‘lock’ has been broken. Unless she learns to take all her weight on a slowly bending knee she will never be reliably safe on steps.