Teaching Kids to Sit Properly on Their Pelvises
I have a son in first grade in public school, and while he has a great teacher who lets them roam around and work on the floor for parts of their working day, there is always the inevitable chair time, and as he gets older, the amount of time with butt in chair will only increase in a public school setting*.
And oh the chairs! I volunteer in his classroom once a month and so I get a chance to size up and glare at those chairs on a regular basis. They are plastic, and molded into a C-curve, exactly the shape that puts pressure on the discs and internal organs while also making it nearly impossible to feel supported in your spine. The result? Growing into a schlump and likely into back and neck pain.
Because of what I do for work, naturally my son knows the words “ischial tuberosities” and can locate them on his body. But there’s just something not quite inviting about simply saying these two long words, pointing to them, and reminding him to sit on them that doesn’t quite capture his attention.
So I came up with a simple way to teach him about sitting on a properly supported pelvis which involves low tech happy and sad face stickers strategically placed. We have done this at home together a couple of times and it’s goofy and silly and therefore seems to have imprinted a sense memory on his mind of what it means to sit on his ischial tuberosities vs. his sacrum.
I still hate the chairs, and I hope to have a larger impact in his classroom’s alignment and movement options, but hey, for now the simple interventions work.
Make a family “sit on your pelvis” date, or slap on some stickers before dinner one night and see if they start to locate their bodies better in space and get more supported in their spines.
* I, like many, currently only have public school available as an option (I can’t afford a more movement friendly private school, and as a single mom with a career home schooling isn’t workable). I’m not alone here, and while my son’s particular public school is fortunately filled with passionate educators and administration, there is always the bureaucracy- especially when it comes to trying to convince them of the importance of movement on top of their already overfull plates (public school educators are taking a beating out there with these new standards- it’s crazy!). All that said, if you’re with me and have any ideas or interest in talking about how to get more nourishing movement into this setting, email me! I’d love to talk options. brooke [at] fasciafreedomfighters [dot] com
photo sourced from Yvonne Thompson
I LOVE this! I love the sad face sticker on the sacrum, because that’s how my sacrum feels when I sit on it. My daughter is heading into first grade next year in a nontraditional school…but there are still chairs. and sitting. I’m advocating for less chair time, less sitting in general and better sitting.
That’s how my sacrum feels too- so sad when I sit on it! Definitely keep me posted on how things go in your daughter’s school. I’d love to hear any insight you might have as she makes the transition and you communicate with them about movement and the ubiquitous chairs…
OMG this is brilliant! My daughter is a slumper and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get her to is properly! I’m so excited to try this! Thank you!
Awesome! Let me know how it goes.
Great video, just posted on my twitter feed. So important not just for children but also for adults. Alignment is such a vital, under valued, part of health care. Thank you for your fantastic site and videos, I love them!
Nice technique! Nice butt!
Great for children AND for adults (sticker content adjustable). I immediately forwarded this to a Kids Yoga teacher who is also a classroom teacher. I’ll just put a happy face sticker on my computer to counteract the I-know-better-but(t) response when my body is in front of it. Thanks for the always useful posts.
This is working brilliantly for me, and my adult self. I tell myself to sit on the smiles and my posture magically fixes itself. Thanks!
Thanks for this great article! I’m a violin teacher and I’m increasingly finding that my younger students are dramatically over-arching their lower backs when they stand (not just when they play, but also when they’re just standing – I attribute it to overly heavy backpacks). When I ask them to stand up straight, or with a long or tall back, they just suck in their tummy, but don’t actually correct the over-arching. When I was a kid, I did ballet and my teacher would always tell us to tuck our butts under so our backs would be straight, but that doesn’t really seem to work either. I’ve taken a lot of Alexander Technique lessons myself and can usually solve these issues pretty well, but this one has me baffled. Any ideas on how to work on this with kids or what language seems to work best? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Hi Molly- thanks for being a teacher who is mindful of alignment! So what you’re seeing is actually rib thrusting, where they tip their ribs up in the front at the place in the spine where the ribs (thoracic spine) meets the low back (lumbar spine). This is what is commonly referred to as a “sway” back. The important thing to realize about this is that is a problem of a displaced rib cage, not an over-arching low back. When people tell children (or adults) to tuck the pelvis to resolve this, they are just layering a fresh strain pattern on top of an already existing strain pattern. Low backs are not meant to be flat- if they were they would be sitting on their sad face in the video. So you can work to tell them to bring their ribs down- bottom of the rib cage should be horizontal and parallel to the floor. But their very low back- where the lumbars meet the sacrum, should actually be a bit anteverted, i.e. there should be an arch there.
Often kids and adults are flaring their ribs forward because they have tight shoulders, and they pop up their ribs so they don’t have to slump their shoulders, so it helps to teach them stretches for their pectoralis muscles when trying to get the ribs down. I hope this helps!
you’d slap the back of my head like a child if you saw how i sit in a chair. I’m so damn tall though. Chairs and desks are not designed with me in mind. I’ll work on it though now! Oh grats on top 10 list btw )
Yeah the “standard” heights of things makes trouble for lots of people. You can try sitting correctly on your pelvis and see if you can add a little cardboard box under your laptop or monitor and see if it allows you to be ore upright. Tall people usually need to hunch down to their desks- so see if you can raise it up. Cardboard is my favorite cheapo desk modifier. And thanks for the congrats on Breaking Muscle’s top 10!
Brook You need to write a book AND Design new school chairs!!!! I love your website and all of your thoughts and teachings
Thanks Mandy! : ) The book is in progress… and the chairs are an excellent goal!
Thank you for posting this! I found your blog from MuTu Mamas.
I had back pain off and on since early 20’s. Sometimes sciatic related, sometimes pregnancy related but I am always trying to improve the way I stand and sit. So this is the easiest way to remember and what a GREAT way to teach my children. I have three and one more on the way!
I love this!
When I have taught alignment in my kids’ K and 1st grade classes, I walk them through a “YES” sit and a “NO” sit. It seems to resonate with them, and we go back and forth in the class so that they can acquire the feel of how the two sits differ.
Only negative is when they start fussing at their teachers for their NO sits. (Ooops!)