Although we encourage play, not everything is safe.

Well, I visited this grandma the other day and found her taking some time to respond to my pushing the bell at the gate. And when she did open the door, between her legs was one tiny little guy with his four-year old mischievous face popping out. Then as grandma reached for the remote controller for the gate, the little one's hand reached out to grab the controller. Before grandma could do anything, the small guy had pressed the controller and the gate started to slide open. But then it stopped. If I had wanted to I could have squeezed my body through, but then I was fortunate to have hesitated for the little one pressed the controller again and it started to close once more.

In that instant, a story of a man crushed to death by such a remote controlled gate came to mind. I had read it quite some time ago in one of the newspapers. The gate had closed before he had managed to go through and the power was great enough to cause him fatal harm.

Well, at this point I became cautious as i did not wish to be in the footsteps of the man who was crushed to death. In fact that little used the remote controller as a toy and played with it resulting in the gate opening a little and closing again a number of times. Finally, the grandma had enough sense to forcefully take back the controller and opened the gate wide enough for me to enter safely.

I told her of the man who was crushed to death by such a gate and told her she has to be careful with that kid handling the remote as someone less careful could become another victim to such carelessness.

When it comes to children, certain things ought not to be allowed to be used as toys as they could endanger the child or others. Sockets, electrical wires and explosive materials from fire-crackers are certainly dangerous things to play with, be it adults or children.

Our lives depend upon it!

Imagine watching a car hurtling towards you at breakneck speed, your mind perceiving the danger heading your way and shrieking for action to avoid imminent death. If you manage to remain calm, with excellent coordination of the various parts of the body and the mind, the response merely takes a few seconds to dash out of the way of the speeding vehicle. Without good coordination, the reaction will be slower by just a few seconds and death can be the only outcome! So, assess for yourself how important coordination is.

Children need toys and games which are essential to the development of their coordination, strength, imagination and creativity.

Coordination of the eyes, the ears, the mind and the various parts of our body is necessary for the accomplishment of every successful act in our lives. Without coordination, even the person who has lots of strength will be clumsy.

How good a person is at any activity in life depends upon the degree of coordination of the necessarily involved parts of the body. Take typing as an example. Some people have such wonderful coordination, and with a little practice, fingers fly over the letters on the keyboard to type that very second, whatever their eyes encounter on the paper beside the keyboard.

So, there is a need to train and develop coordination. To achieve this, parents should make available toys and games which help develop coordination.
To develop coordination, babies could be encouraged to hold our fingers as we hold them in front of them. Using just our fingers or the movement of our face, we can get the child to look towards the left or the right and reach out for our fingers or objects held in our hands.

Encouraging babies to crawl and walk is important as these actions need coordination too.

Toy cars and balls, which can be rolled, pushed or moved or thrown from one person to another, are excellent toys for learning coordination. It helps the child to look and focus on the object, watch its movement and be ready with the hands to catch it as it approaches. Later, the ball can also be thrown in the air towards the child for him/her to catch. The ball can also be kicked, where there is a need to coordinate the eyes with the legs and the information of the position of the ball from the mind.

Obviously, every move we make needs coordination for the move to be effective.