Choosing The Right Chair for Homework and Mealtime

Does your child sprawl in their chair, get up and down from the table, and slouch?

Sitting upright with good posture helps kids focus, pay attention, write neatly, and get through homework more quickly. By following a few simple principles, you can set up your child for success at the start of the school year, before unwanted habits become ingrained.

1. Choose the right chair first. The devil is in the details!

• Your child’s feet should be flat on the floor (not dangling)

• Hips, knees, and ankles should be at 90-degree angles

• The child’s back should be supported against the back of the chair

• The space between the back of your child’s knees and the front of the seat should be about 2 inches. If you can put a finger or two between the child’s knee and the front of the seat, you’ve got about 2 inches

• The chair should be upright, not tilted back

2. The desk/table needs to fit the right chair

• The height of the table or desk top should be 2 inches above the elbow when your child is seated

• A slanted desktop may help a child sit up straighter because it does not require him to bend his neck forward. When a child works on a slant, he automatically extends the wrist, which puts his hand in an optimal position for neat, efficient handwriting

• Center the computer right in front of your child. A keyboard tray right below the surface of the desk is helpful to position the hands for comfortable keyboarding.

• To support back health, Nyhuis in quick controlled movement breaks between assignments so when she sits back down, her posture is upright and she can focus on the next task.

• I recommend having at least 2 ergonomically sound seating arrangements so that the kids can sit and work at their own desks with good posture and sit at the dining room or kitchen table for a family meal, game night, or arts and crafts.

• My all-time favorite chair (I have 3 in my house!) to support healthy posture is the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair. It has a seat and footplate that can be easily adjusted to fit any table or desk, and it grows with your child from their first meals to adulthood.

If your child needs to move around, there are lots of chair substitutes that work well alongside the right chair for homework and mealtime setup, great to mix in throughout the day, as long as your child's feet are firmly planted on the floor and the desk/table is the appropriate height, as above. Try a well-inflated yoga ball placed in a planter tray to prevent it from rolling away, an accordion chair, or a wobble chair.