Fighting your child’s finger fatigue

“I won’t be able to do all that homework I’ll be getting this year. My fingers get too tired from so much written work in school.”

With a long school day and especially with a dual curriculum, your children may be right. Their fingers may be fatigued. They may hurt. They may even be sore.

But the problem may not be the workload. Your child may be holding the pencil or pen too tightly, or in the wrong position. The pencil or pen might be the wrong one for your child.

“Wrong one? Doesn’t every child write with a Number 2 pencil and a thin Bic pen?”

Today, the answer is “no.” Now there are other choices on the market. Now is the time to take advantage of all those “Back to School” sales, where the prices are lower and the choices plentiful.

Though the Number 2 pencil is still the most popular, there are others you might want to try if your child complains that his or her hand hurts. There are thicker pencils that are easier to grip and require less pressure to hold. That reduces the pressure on the fingers and fights finger fatigue.

There are also molded pencil grips, which slip onto the old standard Number 2 yellow pencil (as well as on other pencils of various sizes). These grips cost only a few cents apiece and allow your child to hold the pencils in a more natural way. They are also considered “cool” because they come in different colors and textures, and can be used as a pencil eraser.

When it comes to pens, you have even more choices. There are pens that are completely molded to fit your child’s hand. Bic has been selling its “wide-body” pen for several years. It is easier to hold than the standard stick pen, and writes just as well.

Other pen manufacturers have similar thick pens. There are also molded grips which fit over stick pens, and there are even flexible wands about 1/8th of an inch thick which your child can bend around a pen, creating a holder for gripping in a way that makes it extremely comfortable.

So before you blame the school for giving too much homework, or discipline your child for not wanting to do it, check out the pens and pencils at your local school supply store. The answer to your child’s complaint might be a simple change of pen or pencil.