Article Review: Kids are Losing their Fine Motor Skills – and Screens Might Be to Blame

We’re always on the lookout for OT articles in the mainstream. Earlier this year, one finally presented itself from National Geographic: Kids are losing fine motor skills – and screens might be to blame. (This is a paid article.)

Lots of clickbait going on here, sadly. In our TL:DR world, one could easily surmise once again that screens are the bane of our existence and they’re turning our kids inadequate. And according to the article’s 1,300 comments on Instagram, it’s ABSOLUTELY true and we parents should be ashamed of ourselves!!!

Does this really paint the whole picture? No.
Does it lazily blame screens, and then by extension, parents? Yes.

Here’s our quick article review:

A recent survey by Education Week found that 77% of educators reported young students having greater difficulties handling pencils, pens, and scissors. In comparison, 69% noted increased struggles with tying shoes compared to five years ago… Experts point to a complex mix of screen time, changing habits, and a shift in childhood experiences as the culprits.

There’s no denying that children’s fine motor skills have declined over the years. But the reasons for it are a bit more complex than what this article suggests. For the sake of simplicity, it seems like it wants to place blame on excessive use of screens and the “convenience of parenting.” While this article does cover some key points, it left us feeling like there is no resolve. Change or else (dun dun dun…)
Handling pencils and scissors are a basic school necessity, and these skills are built over time and with repetition. So even a kid who spends hours and hours playing outside will still have weird handwriting and cut uneven lines at age 5. Compare your own handwriting from Kindergarten to 3^rd grade to now. If trends are to be followed, the time frame for this skill set would skew later, along with all of the other development milestones.
Similarly, comparing anything from 2019 to now is futile. People were genuinely scared to go outside. The article also doesn’t disaggregate students: rural vs. urban, high vs low income, racial demographics, parent education and marriage demographics, caregiving background, special needs and learning disabilities, etc. This very much seems to be correlation vs. causation.

“It’s like they’ve never seen a block,” says Hornbeck, an instructional coach at Beverly City Public Schools in New Jersey, describing how kids fumble when asked to stack just three blocks. “The things they do with the block when you’ve just shown them what to do is boggling.”

The active and intentional physical touch and manipulation of objects is known as haptic perception. This interaction builds muscle strength and dexterity in their hands necessary for learning refined motor skills later, like using eating utensils, writing/drawing, and buttoning their clothes.
The article also doesn’t explicitly state what grade Hornbeck teaches in, so she could be talking about kindergarteners or fifth graders for all we know. What exactly was the purpose, age group, and context of the block experiment?

A study of over 250 babies born in the first year of the pandemic found that they scored lower on fine motor tests at six months old than babies born before the pandemic.

Children born right before or during the pandemic experienced societal changes during their early development. Masks affected speech and language while limited exposure to other environments reduced social skills and play. Society relied more on screens as a form of education, social connection, and entertainment for all ages, children included. This resulted in modest delays in communication and language, social skills, as well as problem-solving and cognitive flexibility.
While the study referenced in this article was published in 2022 regarding 6-month-old babies, a large-scale study released in 2024 found only small decreases in communication and personal-social skills, with no significant changes in fine or gross motor skills. Another study conducted in 2023 echoes a similar sentiment, finding that most pandemic-born babies display typical development with only a small percentage at risk for developmental delay.

Time spent on screens—whether phones, tablets, eBooks, or TV—all adds up to time kids aren’t crafting, drawing, and building. While learning math or creating digital art can be educational, it doesn’t develop the fine motor control that comes from writing, cutting, or coloring.

This point we do agree on, but it’s not just fine motor skill difficulties. While I was working in the clinic, many children who had excessive screen time had poor fine motor skills, but also poor coordination, motor planning, body awareness, visual motor skills, etc. So while outdoor play would help, in most cases of excessive screen time, there are other parenting and lifestyle factors in play.

Convenience in parenting has also impacted skill development, says Hornbeck. Stretchy pants without zippers or buttons save time on busy mornings, and pre-packaged snacks eliminate mess—but these shortcuts deprive kids of opportunities to practice zipping, buttoning, or using utensils.

Modern day conveniences are solutions to common problems. The majority of families have both parents working and kids are getting moved around from home to school to activity to bed. Parents are already getting crap for not doing enough for their kids, or not exposing them to enough, or not getting them started in sports or reading early enough. *Big point here to schools expecting kids to be a whole grade level ahead before coming into the classroom. There simply is not enough time compared to the fairly relaxed obligations of the generations prior.
For the record, fine motor skills are still required to complete functional daily tasks. While children may not be required to tie their shoes by the age of 5 like before, they will need to know how to open those prepackaged items or pick up hand-held food without making a mess. Even without buttons or zippers, kids are still able to dress themselves and get ready in the morning and evening. This isn’t to say that these other skills are not as important (they will still be learned eventually), but it’s not as dire or timely as they once were. Don’t judge a fish by its ability to tie their shoes…

Not only is it easier for us to give our kids slip-on or Velcro shoes than to teach them how to tie them, but the market simply doesn’t provide as many lace-up shoes up to a certain size. Do I really want to go out of my way to find them? Not really. I don’t think you’ll find many parents who are okay with being “inconvenienced” when our everyday stress is at record highs.

Reading for fun has become far less common among U.S. children, according to data from Pew Research. While turning the pages of a book might seem like a minor task, Hornbeck notes that the broader ability to focus and follow instructions—skills fostered by reading—are key to activities like zipping a coat or tying a shoelace.

Reading also involves focus and attention. So to pin the decline of it as the reason why fine motor skills are dropping feels like a stretch. Reading is a complex skill and requires a lot of time and exposure to learn. There are other variables at play (word recognition, fluency, comprehension) than to say that children just aren’t interested.
The article’s focus jumps from toddlers to school-age kids to this study on 9- and 13-year-olds. These ages have vastly different development rates and abilities. Pretty sure most 9- and 13-year-olds know how to zip up a coat…
Yes, reading does help build sustained attention and cognitive endurance, but so can other activities, like board games, arts and crafts, and puzzles. The article also doesn’t mention all of the motor and executive function skills learned during physical sports, which kids are starting earlier and earlier.
Do they really bring up the “broader ability to focus and follow instructions” without mentioning rising rates of ADHD?

Overall, we at least liked that the article brought up the importance of fine motor skills; but for the most part we were a bit disappointed. We had hoped NatGeo would give us a little more science than a trash article that loosely connects screens, poor academic performance, and parent shaming. A lot of the observations and sources in the articles seem more anecdotal than quantitative.

It doesn’t really tell us anything new and then it (confusingly) references another article on why screen time has surprising benefits.

To be clear, we don’t want to come across as defensive parents looking for excuses. Unfortunately, pinning everything once again on screen time is like beating a dead horse and preaching to the choir. It might be a small sample set, but I think most parents we know are already actively curbing screen time and monitoring content. You’d be hard pressed to find a parent that doesn’t already know that screens are addictive and YouTube is brain rot. So everytime you bring up one instance where a parent has given their kid a screen in public, maybe don’t turn it into a blanket statement on modern parenting.

Zooming out, is the call-to-action of this article to just get your kids outside more? If that’s the case, you could’ve just said that without the runaround. “Outdoor old-fashioned play helps kids rebuild fine motor skills and supports school success”; there, fixed it.

While the article does provide suggestions in rebuilding fine motor skills, here are some of our suggestions:

Allow for outdoor, risky, and unstructured play.
Let kids get messy and allow them explore/experiment with the objects around them.
Let them be bored.
Open-ended toys, as simple as they can be, allow for creativity and imagination (especially during times of boredom).
Be present, patient, and willing to teach when your child is learning a new skill – whether that’s reading, tying shoes, or putting a puzzle together.
Lead with curiosity instead of instructing your kids “how it’s done”

Sources:
Johnson, S. B., Kuehn, M., Lambert, J. O., Spin, J. P., Klein, L. M., Howard, B., Sturner, R., & Perrin, E. M. (2024). Developmental Milestone Attainment in US Children Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.0683
Giesbrecht, G. F., Lebel, C., Dennis, C.-L., Silang, K., Xie, E. B., Tough, S., McDonald, S., & Tomfohr-Madsen, L. (2023). Risk for Developmental Delay Among Infants Born During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 44(6), e412. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000001197