19/06/2026
A child on a swing – or who controls the movement? 🤔
What's the difference in the exercise? A child swings on their own versus a therapist swinging the child.
At first glance, it looks similar:
The child sits on a swing, experiences movement, and their vestibular system is working.
But from the brain's perspective, these can be two completely different experiences.
🔹 When a child sets the swing in motion…
They are the creator of the movement.
They decide on the direction, pace, force, duration, and stopping time. At the same time, they anticipate what will happen next. The brain creates a movement plan, sends a signal to the muscles, and then compares the anticipated sensations with what the vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual receptors actually perceive.
The child therefore practices:
✔ motor planning,
✔ bilateral coordination,
✔ a sense of agency,
✔ arousal regulation,
✔ adjusting the strength and pace of movement,
✔ active postural control.
This is a situation in which the nervous system operates in the "I am directing my body" mode.
🔹 But what happens when the therapist directs the movement?
The situation is completely different here.
The child doesn't know exactly when the movement will begin, accelerate, slow down, or change direction. Therefore, they must constantly adapt their body to changing conditions.
This requires:
✔ counterbalancing reactions,
✔ automatic postural reactions,
✔ adaptation to external stimuli,
✔ tolerance for loss of control,
✔ trust in the other person,
✔ flexibility of the nervous system.
The brain then operates in the "Someone is directing the movement, and I must adapt."
That's why this type of activity can be especially important for children who:
▪ have a strong need for control,
▪ want to decide for themselves what happens around them,
▪ have difficulty inhibiting impulses,
▪ have difficulty tolerating unpredictability.
Such children often function best when they are in control. It's much more difficult for them to adapt their body position to the conditions imposed by the environment.
And yet🙃
We don't always create movement.
We don't always decide the pace of events.
That's why we need both experiences in therapy.
We need situations in which the child is the creator of movement.
But we also need situations in which they learn to organize their body and attention when movement comes from outside.
Because a mature nervous system isn't just about the ability to control the world.
It's also about the ability to adapt when the world doesn't work according to our plan.
