HEALTH PLUS:Fingers and toes play a role in the emotional and educational life of your child, writes Marie Murray.
ONE OF the first acts by new parents, immediately after the birth of their baby, is to count the baby's fingers and toes. Many parents give accounts of doing so - quickly, silently, fearfully and automatically in an almost unconscious ritual to establish that all is well.
Counting provides objective, numeric assurance that what should be there is there: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers and toes. If all are present in the right order and number, parents usually feel reassured that their baby will not be challenged by difference in life. That is the wish of each parent. That is why new parents count fingers and toes.
At birth, therefore, gender is verified, the child is held, the face is examined, the eyes are sought and the automatic quick counting of fingers and toes is completed. But the preoccupation with fingers and toes does not end there - they continue to play a role in the emotional and educational life of the child.
And of course, in later life, even in these somewhat cynical times about relationships, it is still custom to place a specific ring upon a particular finger to seal the deal of lifelong partnership.
Fingers and toes serve as inbuilt calculators. The first counting games are played using fingers and toes. Most children will have experienced the terrifying delight of the toe-pulling involved in the rhyme about the piggies going to the market.
In that traditional game each toe is pulled in turn. The first represents the "little piggy" that went to the market. The second, the piggy that stayed home; the third got bread and butter; the fourth, none.
Then comes the culmination of this childhood ritual, as the little toe is caught in a dramatic hold to the refrain "and this little piggy went 'weeeeeeeeee', all the way home".
Fingers are the best toys. When travelling with children they are priceless. They can be examined, used to tap out rhythm and time and be intertwined. They are the source of endless games, counting rhymes and songs and, later, of charades.
They make animal shapes which, in addition to learning about nature, fires the imagination through symbolic play. They are available at all times.
They are the immediate distraction for the fractious child, particularly if ritualistic songs have already been established using them, because children love ritual. They love to know what is going to happen next and they love the inbuilt repetition of their favourite games.
Fingers are invaluable when no other toys are available. They are the "legs" of "eensy, weensy spider" climbing up and down the child's arm to tickle under the chin. They are the story of the fine lady with "rings on her fingers and bells on her toes".
They are imaginative opposing armies of five against five. They can scoop the last remnants of yoghurt from a carton and, when all else fails, thumbs are sucked and silence descends upon the tired child.
Toes have the added advantage that fingers can manipulate them and so expand play in creative ways. When children are learning to count, using both their fingers and toes extends numeric options to 20.
In school, addition and subtraction are visible as fingers are held up or folded down providing two learning modalities in one: the chanting of numbers and the accompanying actions of the fingers when doing so.
During the pre-language stage, because the infant can point to the object he or she requires, this reduces infant frustration. And language is acquired as parents automatically name all that the child identifies by that tiny digit making the request.
Children enjoy sharing a book of familiar pictures, pointing as parents ask them to identify each one. Sign language provides children with hearing impairments with an important means of connecting with the world, and, in this communication, flying fingers are impressive to watch.
The emotional function of fingers is not to be dismissed. Fingers assist the expression of feelings when they are bunched, aimed, twisted, hidden or open with delight.
In anger they may be used to pinch or prod another child or to gesture insults at them while all children know what an adult means when a finger is pointed or wagged at them.
Fingers are not just functional. They stretch out to grasp life. Most parents remember the first time their own index finger was clutched by the tiny fingers of their newborn child, the first time a hand reached out for theirs and those fingers walked o'er their hearts "with gentle gait", and lifelong bond.
Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in University College Dublin