Throwing objects, from drinking bottles and toys to food, dishes or even feces, can pose great challenges for caregivers and therapists of „early“ children. Because the child often laughs boisterously and seems to find it so funny, adults often initially classify it as playful, harmless or age-appropriate, especially if they only see the child once a week for a therapy session or until they start school. Some children throw very purposefully and accurately, which often fills parents and other caregivers with great pride.
But if after a few weeks the desire to throw has not been replaced by other behaviors and interests as hoped, or can be redirected to permitted throwing materials and certain places, then it becomes increasingly clear that from a developmental psychological perspective this is a serious problem that is anything but fun. This is because attempts to explain or teach children what they can or cannot throw, when, where and how often fail.
Taylor (9 years old, bilingual, but mostly non-verbal) has for years found it very funny to throw everything he picks up immediately and unerringly - preferably things made of glass into windows (they have all been netted for a long time). He was so quick at throwing everything away that even the experts called in saw no other way than to advise the desperate parents as a last resort to twist his arm behind his back every time he threw something. But that didn't work either. On the contrary: as soon as his hand was free again, the next object flew across the room or into the window.
From locomotion to exploring with your hands
The human ability to throw is closely linked to the development of bipedalism. Only by walking upright do the arms and hands become free from the function of locomotion and can be used for the targeted manipulation of objects, the use of tools and complex throwing movements as an athletic performance. However, if a child's early developmental stages of physical organization and sensory integration remain incomplete, this is reflected in their movement behavior - including throwing, which then takes on a completely different meaning than throwing as a game.
‚Early‘ children and the use of their hands
The hands of most ‚early‘ children are often used less for exploring, grasping, shaping or the intentional use of tools, but are mostly used either for sensory stroking or for repetitive, discharging movements to release tension.
Once this is understood, the focus shifts to supporting the child in catching up on insufficiently developed early grasping and movement basics.
This is because ‚early‘ children who frequently throw things typically show limited ability in early basic movement patterns such as
- differentiated, conscious grasping and letting go
- a sturdy power grip to hold and use things or a tool
- Hand-hand and hand-eye coordination
- Visual-spatial perception and use of space
Pleasurable flinging away as a reflex
When ‚early‘ children throw things, this is usually not an expression of an interactive play intention, but in reality a kind of reflex focusing on the sensory satisfaction of feeling momentum and the subsequent expected visual-auditory impact in space, as well as the predictable interactive reactions and ‚fireworks‘ of present caregivers, usually at the point of impact.
In most cases, it is not a matter of consciously throwing and letting go, but a reflexive pushing off and throwing things away, or a kind of ‚dropping with momentum‘, so that the object
- disappears quickly and effortlessly from the hand (and consciousness)
- causes a guaranteed visual-auditory impact
- shifts the general attention to a place away from the child (of the impact)
- results in a predictable social spectacle by the adults present
Throwing instead of doing as an interrupted development
This kind of pleasurable throwing of ‚early‘ children can also be understood as a kind of aborted preliminary stage of the basic early form of movement of knocking & hitting and tool use. The child grasps an object. But since he lacks the basic movement patterns to be able to hold the object and skillfully bring it into relationship with the environment, the child immediately gets rid of the unpleasant feelings associated with it by catapulting the object away from him.
Taylor (now 14 years old) has fallen into a vicious circle of taking and discarding, which has been inhibiting his development for years. In spite of his 2-language development potential, neither parents nor school have been able to free him from this. He almost never has the experience of holding an object in his hands long enough to do something with it and thereby gain new experiences and learn something. For safety reasons, he therefore spends his short time at school with his 1-1 companion in an empty room, talking. But he doesn't learn anything there. And terribly, he is now smearing his poo.
Two major problems arise from the repeated pleasurable throwing:
- If the object is no longer there, the child can no longer have new experiences with it from which it could learn something and further develop its grasping skills.
- Throwing away guarantees a predictably intense, emotionally charged reaction pattern from the adults on site, such as shouting, shouting, frantic movements, chaos and commotion.
This creates a recurring, predictable „theater program“ by the adults, in which the child, freed from any pressure to act, can simply watch the noise as an amused spectator without having to do anything himself.
The educational spectacle
The adults involved believe that their scolding, explanations and punishments will bring about a change in this challenging behavior. However, as many „early“ children have auditory processing difficulties, they usually mainly perceive the exciting confusion of voices, excited movements and emotions, but not the words, explanations or appeals to their reason. On the contrary - the child experiences the predictable post-throwing noise and spectacle as a free space in which it is not exposed to any expectations or demands. Instead of dealing with the actual task and getting into action, the child becomes a spectator of a predictable, suspenseful spectacle.
This can easily lead to the child learning, above all, that his ‚funny‘ explosive throwing guarantees him a lot of immediate and exciting attention when the adults get frightened, talk a lot and loudly, explain, admonish him or, usually from a distance, loudly shout ‚No! Don't throw! At the same time, a lot happens without the child having to do anything or make any effort when the adult turns to the child and then to the thrown object, picks it up and explains each time that it is not allowed or asks ‘Why did you do that again? Unfortunately, these adult responses actually reinforce and stabilize the child's behavior, as it reliably generates attention and excitement while distracting them from any activity. This also explains why the behavior often seems so funny to the child, but is stressful or destructive for those around them: because ‚early‘ children lack embedding in a shared meaning or social purpose.
Differentiation from ball games
Unlike ball games, which are social, goal-oriented and cooperative, the impulsive throwing of ‚early‘ children is not a dialog with a play partner, but a repetitive and self-centered dead-end behavior.
In general, ball games require interactive developmental skills that are not yet, or only insufficiently, developed in most ‚early‘ children:
- Social orientation and cooperation
- Interest in dialog and togetherness, awareness of I and you
- Joint focus on one game or goal
- Estimation of distance, force and direction
- Understanding cause and effect
- Consideration of rules and consequences
- Risk assessment
However, if the child does not care what the other person means or wants from him, or does not (yet) perceive him as a sentient fellow human being with his own needs and is in a good relationship with him (i.e. solidly on FEDC 1-4 in the Floortime model), then throwing is not a fun game, but dangerous in many ways and must be actively limited and restricted as much as possible by the caregivers, instead of expecting the child to be able to do this himself. .
Why reacting and scolding reinforces throwing
For this reason, it makes no educational sense to try to prohibit or sanction throwing, nor to simply tolerate it and hope that the child will give it up on its own. Passively tolerating habitual throwing usually overlooks the fact that it is not mature play behavior, but an indication of a lack of developmental foundations.
Here, the habitual pleasurable throwing can be recognized as self-deprivation and effort-avoiding behaviour, and how these aspects can quickly mutate into self-hindering and development-inhibiting dead-end behaviour.
So when we respond interactively to the child and its throwing, we are primarily reinforcing these effort-avoiding and development-inhibiting stimulus-response patterns, i.e. what the child finds so funny. This is because such a reflex is unconscious and not intentional, i.e. the behavior cannot be controlled by explanations or appeals to reason.
How best to help: Silent leadership instead of theatrical response
What the child needs is our active help to develop the underlying movement patterns in a targeted way: via movement and whole-body coordination, grasping and tool use and meaningful, experience-based handling of objects and holding experiences of rhythm and repetition that convey safety and self-efficacy. In order for throwing to lose its simple appeal, you should try as much as possible to prevent throwing, e.g. by taking full responsibility for the child's hands for a few days and making sure that throwing simply cannot happen. Or offer mainly cloths, sponges, rags and other soft play materials that are unsatisfactory to throw, fly badly and make no noise on impact.
Above all, however, it is imperative to avoid startle reactions, frantic movements, excited admonitions and talking at all, which the child finds so funny because he knows that the adult will now reel off his usual theatrical program. By not reacting or reacting minimally and taking care of the child's hands as best we can to prevent throwing if possible, we begin to develop new neural pathways and patterns of expectation that promote development in order to lead the child out of their ‚funny‘ dead-end habits.
Regular Waldon sessions are ideal for this in many respects. This is because by doing things in silence in combination with rhythm and repetition, we can communicate to the child that it is not about interaction or fun to stage pandemonium, chaos and noise by throwing things, but that we are allying ourselves with the part of the child's personality that can do, achieve and develop something. In this way, we can help them to resist the inner forces of effort-avoiding and development-inhibiting dead-end habits that want to tempt them to have fun, throw things, make fun of tasks and amuse themselves by maintaining their habitual status quo and preventing mental and emotional growth and change. Such a quiet and understanding approach can sometimes lead to big changes in a short time.
Chapter from: Learning to learn with autistic children. Sibylle Janert (2026, Reinhard Verlag)
