While growing up, children develop strange habits. Every child is a world on their own, that’s what people say. And you should let them be as much of themselves as possible.
But there are some habits you simply shouldn’t let be, such as this style of sitting. It can do so much harm to the children’s body that’s still in development.
The “W position sit” is a most definite NO for young children, because it could lead to serious orthopedic conditions. This style of sitting prevents children to shift their weight and achieve the so called “trunk rotation”.
If a child is not able to rotate while sitting, it can have long term serious consequences. For a perfect balance and balance reactions of the muscles in the body, a child needs to have developed exactly this shift of the weight.
It’s absolutely necessary to alleviate a fall, run properly and even walk properly, with your whole body, not only your legs.
With the further development, each skill is necessary to “promote it” to another skill. Simply, to level up! If the shift in weight coordination is interrupted, it can lead to disadvantages on achieving other skills, such as skipping, throwing, kicking, hand dominance and so on.
And at last, but not the least, the sitting in a W-pose can shorten and tighten the hips and the muscles on the legs. This leads to a disfiguration called “pigeon-toes”. This disfiguration does not only happen in the legs and hips, but furthermore, the whole body posture, including the back.
It’s a better option, while sitting and playing on the ground, to sit with legs crossed, like Buddha-style