Child who grips pencil too tightly--help

[Harriet Vane]

Hi--

 

What are some tips or strategies to help a child who grips her pencil too tightly? She says it hurts to write. When she holds the pencil, she tucks her thumb around the pencil and under her index finger where I just let the pencil rest between three fingers.

 

Thanks!

[Guest]

I use a giant pompom (like two inch diameter) and have them hold it in their palms.

 

Then we practice holding a short pencil between our thumb and index finger, keeping a light grip on the pompom in the bottom three fingers at all times.

 

Works great here :)

 

This is a good hand position in the picture:

http://www.charlotteoccupationaltherapy.com/my-pencil-grip-rocks/

 

Index and thumb softly and loosely control the pencil. Bottom three fingers support the hand (and in our case hold the pompom and keep space in there until it becomes natural).

Edited February 3, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[Guest]

Also consider using fountain or gel pens instead of pencils. The lower resistance and drag compared to a pencil makes writing with soft hands much easier.

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Give her pencils that are extremely short, and have her write on the wall (pin the paper to the wall). Same with crayons; nice and short.

[Anne]

There are several different kinds of pencil grips you can buy that will help alleviate this problem.

 

Some are just a soft grip like a cover that fits over the pencil, and you can usually find this kind at an office supply store.

 

There are others which have indentations for thumb and fingers to help the fingers into the right position.  I always bought mine at educational stores and don't know if they are available other places.

 

Anne

[MercyA]

There are several different kinds of pencil grips you can buy that will help alleviate this problem.

 

Some are just a soft grip like a cover that fits over the pencil, and you can usually find this kind at an office supply store.

 

There are others which have indentations for thumb and fingers to help the fingers into the right position.  I always bought mine at educational stores and don't know if they are available other places.

 

Anne

 

Yes. We love this one.

[LostSurprise]

When ds saw a OT she recommended we put his paper on a slant...for instance, putting the writing or workbook on a 3-ring binder more than an 1" thick (so a greater angle). It makes it harder for them to push straight down and over time they lighten their grip. The greater the angle of the paper, the less they can press down. It took a few months with gradually less and less of a slant to retrain his grip. 

 

YMMV, my son has small motor control issues so he was over-compensating. 

[Ellie]

A fountain pen works wonders.

 

Also, pencil grips like these help some children.

[zoobie]

Y pencils are useful for that: Baumgartens 00071 Twist and Write Pencil, Assorted Color https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CBU1H3Q/

 

There's also an egg-shaped grip that might help. The OT we saw had all different grips and such that the kids could try. You can google for OT hand strengthening exercises that use therapy putty (also available on Amazon). My kids like Thinking putty too which feels similar but is much cooler looking.

[Laura Corin]

What exercise does she take?  If the trunk strength is not good, then it will be tiring to sit, the child will tend to lean on their arms, and that causes the death grip on the pencil.

 

An hour of red-in-the-face exercise a day was what I aimed for with the children.  In our case it was swimming once a week, martial arts once or twice, exercises plus running on other days.

[Ausmumof3]

What exercise does she take? If the trunk strength is not good, then it will be tiring to sit, the child will tend to lean on their arms, and that causes the death grip on the pencil.

 

An hour of red-in-the-face exercise a day was what I aimed for with the children. In our case it was swimming once a week, martial arts once or twice, exercises plus running on other days.

Do you mind me asking because I feel like we need more of this how you scheduled it? My kids have been pretty active but I feel like they need more adult input activity only I'm struggling to fit it all in? The out activities work best because they're non negotiable but we live a fair distance from them.

[Guest freshoceanair]

My oldest daughter has dysgraphia. You may consider having your child assessed. Aside from the weak fine motor skills and some visual processing issues she is cognitively normal and of above average intelligence. In the early elementary years we used very large pencils and pens. Really exaggerated in size. Hello Kitty has some that are really wide. Now i believe there may be some on the market specifically for fine motor problems. Triangular shaped mechanical pencils helped too. The squishy pencil grips didn't help much because they were not big enough. Handwriting for to long was painful but we didn't run away from it. We just adjusted the length of time to smaller more manageable increments. When she needed to write reports or essays I would allow her to dictate to me. It is hard to formulate your thoughts into words when your hand hurts so I wrote for her. We did oral testing too. We have also used dictating software. I also discovered that one of the reasons she pressed so hard is that her eye is naturally drawn to contrast. A light 2b pencil is to light. Now we user really smooth gliding black pens and that helps her out visually so she doesn't feel as inclined to grip to hard. Now she is 13 and her handwriting is nice. She can do everything she will need to do with a pen but types most of her school work for ease. Finally I want to add that dysgraphics should learn cusive first as they have a very painterly hand and can be wonderful artists within a looser medium. I hope this helps.

 

Sent from my SM-G360T using Tapatalk

[Laura Corin]

Do you mind me asking because I feel like we need more of this how you scheduled it? My kids have been pretty active but I feel like they need more adult input activity only I'm struggling to fit it all in? The out activities work best because they're non negotiable but we live a fair distance from them.

 

We just scheduled a block of time in the morning for exercises (mid-morning, I think) then mid-afternoon for running/walking.  I started from the idea that three things were non-negotiable up to age ten or eleven: English, maths and PE.

 

When they were tiny, I just used to take them to the playground for an hour a day when the other kids came out of pre-school/school.  As they grew older, I had to make it more structured.