• Question: Why is it that I am more clumsy than my friends?

    Asked by anon-187165 to Stewart, Miriam, Marton, Laura, Kathryn, David on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Stewart Martin-Haugh

      Stewart Martin-Haugh answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      You might find that you’re clumsy in some ways, but not in others: my wife is really bad at sports (she won’t mind me saying this) but can play 3 musical instruments. I tend to bump into more things but am slightly better at sports.

      If you find that you’re very clumsy to the point where you’re worried about it, it could be dyspraxia – the NHS has some information here:
      https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/developmental-coordination-disorder-dyspraxia/

    • Photo: Miriam Hogg

      Miriam Hogg answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Everyone is clumsy to a degree, sometimes we don’t pay attention to where things are, or get distracted at the wrong time. If you’re finding that you’re a lot more clumsy than other people it might be dyspraxia as Stewart said or that you have lower hand eye coordination for some other reason.

      I know people with dyspraxia and from speaking to them about it and watching them it seems that they can have good and bad days, some days they have great coordination, but others they cant play pool, or write as neatly (some seem to struggle with hand coordination mostly but I know other people with it that can’t run very well because they lack body coordination). If you are worried about it you should definitely go to doctor, if you do have it they have lots of exercises to help boost your coordination (and even if you don’t you could do them anyway to help)

      It could also be a growth spurt, if you’ve grown quickly over the past year you can sometimes be less coordinated as your brain needs to get used to the new proportions of your body!

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