This is a gentle, comforting stretch that can be done at bedtime for children who experience knee pain at night.  

For painful legs without swelling, redness or acute injury. Please check with your physical therapist or doctor before doing these stretches.

Some children develop tightness in the muscles that join the scapula to the shoulder blade. This tightness makes it difficult to move the hand forwards with the elbow close to the body. This movement is needed for working with the hands in front of the body (cutting with scissors) and for for drawing and writing. 

In this exercise you reach up as high as you can with one arm and hold the stretched position for 10 slow counts. This provides a good stretch for the shoulder muscles and makes it easier to reach forwards with the arm for hand tasks, drawing and handwriting. 

Children are often expected to sit cross legged on the floor for an extended period of time, such as during morning ring or story time.  The majority of children can do this with relative ease.  

However children with joint hypermobility and low tone often find sitting with their legs crossed uncomfortable because of tightness in the muscles that cross from the lower back over the sides of the hips and down to the side of the knees.

This exercise stretches the shoulder, upper and lower back muscles, as well as the hip muscles, improving the child's ability to sit erect when sitting cross legged.

The iliotibial band is often tight in children with joint hypermobility and contributes to the tendency to stand with the feet wide apart and the toes turned outwards.

This exercise stretches the lower back, hamstring and calf muscles. 

This is a good stretch for a child  who walks on the toes.