Guest blogger Andrea Givens: Tips for getting your kid to learn the basics.

When a child lacks fine motor skills, he or she really struggles with basic activities such as using scissors, using writing and drawing materials like pencils, pens and crayons, fastening buttons, zipping, snapping, hooking and tying shoelaces. These last few skills can be really frustrating for parents who just want their kid to dress himself. I've been there.

Despite the gaggles of resources suggesting ways to strengthen finger and hand muscles and increase visual coordination, I found that activities had to be really fun and something my son was drawn to anyway in order to work. I couldn't just sit Zion down and have him use stencils to trace letters or shapes, or pick up cotton balls with tweezers. Zion's play has to mean something, and no kid, no matter what his or her challenges, likes to be worked to death. They want to play.

Zion loves playing with blocks -- the big, multi-colored Duplos are his favorite. With his fantastic imagination, he makes cars and spaceships and lots and lots of guns. (It's a boy thing.) While he's tearing things down and blowing things up, he's gaining control of the muscles in his fingers and learning more about how his body moves, particularly his hands. It sounds odd to those of us who just know, but not everybody is born with body awareness. Some kids have to learn it. It's part of being developmentally delayed. Fortunately, it's something that can be worked on.

As we move into summer, we'll do other activities that are fun, the byproduct of which will be increased fine motor skills. Here are my suggestions for what has worked for us:
1. If you live near a strawberry or blackberry patch, have fun and go pick some! Watch out for the thorns.
2. Pull out the Uno decks and board games for some great family time.
3. Take advantage if you have a budding artist and encourage him or her to draw some of their favorite family moments or even characters from movies.
4. Playing with action figures--their imaginary world is actually effective--is another fun way to help them develop their motor skills.

For more fun escapades from Andrea and her son Zion, click here.