Getting Toddlers on the Right Track
By Marc Bloom

Child Magazine, May/June 1989

For a toddler, movement is critical to self-discovery, fostering independence and pride, expanding the world, and developing concepts of time and space. Toddlers move naturally. Activity, therefore, need not be artificially imposed. The desire must simply be fed so that it remains fertile as the child gets older. Dancer Suellen Epstein of New York City has found a way to engage toddlers through what she calls, "creative movement imagery." Epstein directs a children's tumbling program, in which tots act out stories by stretching like trees in the wind, hopping like rabbits. "Kids must feel comfortable and excited about working with their bodies," says Epstein. "They're not so much using their muscles as their 'shapes'." Epstein encourages parents to "roll around and play on the floor with their children."