Postural Concerns
Slouching, forward head posture, uneven shoulders, or leaning to one side while sitting at a desk can signal spinal imbalances.

Back, Neck, or Growing Pains
Chiropractic may help relieve tension caused by growth spurts, heavy schoolbags, sports injuries, or awkward sleeping positions.

Headaches
Kids can experience headaches from poor posture, screen time, dehydration, or tension—often linked to spinal or cranial restrictions.

Concentration, Focus & Behavioural Challenges
A stressed or imbalanced nervous system may contribute to attention difficulties, irritability, or sensory overwhelm. Chiropractic care helps regulate the nervous system.

Retained Primitive Reflexes
Unintegrated reflexes can affect reading, writing, coordination, or attention. A holistic chiropractor can assess and support integration alongside home-based exercises.

Sports Performance & Recovery
Children involved in sports may benefit from regular check-ins to improve balance, mobility, and injury prevention.

Clumsiness or Coordination Issues
If a child frequently trips, struggles with fine motor skills, or avoids physical activity, chiropractic may help by improving proprioception and nervous system function.

Anxiety or Emotional Dysregulation
A dysregulated nervous system may show up as emotional outbursts, shutdowns, or chronic stress. Gentle chiropractic care supports parasympathetic (calming) activity.

Recurring Illness or Low Immunity
Holistic care doesn't treat illness directly but aims to support immune resilience by enhancing nervous system function and reducing stress on the body.

To Support Learning Difficulties
Holistic chiropractors often work alongside educators, speech pathologists, or OTs to help children struggling with literacy, concentration, or sensory processing.

Head Tilt, Shoulder Height Imbalance or Gait Issues
Subtle alignment changes can impact a child’s movement patterns. Chiropractic helps assess and rebalance these gently over time.

As Part of a Preventative or Wellness Lifestyle
Families who value natural health often include chiropractic care to keep their kids' bodies and minds functioning at their best—even when there are no symptoms.

Every child is different; every assessment is a bit different (and we adapt things to make the assessment as fun as possible).

And your explanation of all the things you think that have contributed to getting to this point will help us to get to the bottom of what your child and your family might need.

A Paediatric Chiropractic Assessment might include:

• Your child’s spinal range of motion check

• Scoliosis assessment

• Developmental milestone assessment

• Primitive & Postural Reflex Assessment

• Balance/ Coordination ~ Cerebellar and Vestibular Systems assessment

• Post injury examination

• Nervous system health and vitality check

• Posture

If your child is complaining of symptoms like back pain, neck pain, headaches, sore tummy.. we will aim to find the root cause of their issue.
If your child is neuro-divergent, has low tone, poor coordination or balance, then we will focus more on the maturity of their nervous system through primitive and postural reflex assessments.

Children with cerebellar imbalances may experience:

• Difficulty balancing or standing on one leg

• Clumsiness or frequent falls

• Struggling with heel-to-toe walking

• Jerky or uncoordinated hand movements

• Poor handwriting or scissor skills

• Trouble catching or throwing a ball

• Fatigue with physical or mental effort

• Speech delays or unclear articulation

These may be subtle, but over time they can affect confidence, learning, and social interactions.

At Nomad Chiropractic, we assess and support your child’s neurodevelopment, including cerebellar function. Using gentle, age-appropriate chiropractic adjustments, we work to:

Improve communication between the brain and body

• Enhance balance and coordination

• Reduce nervous system stress

• Support reflex integration and movement patterns

Our assessments may include fun but purposeful activities like standing on one leg, coordination games, and observing posture and gait.

Simple daily activities can support cerebellar development:

Balance games: Stand on one leg while brushing teeth or play “tightrope walk” along a line

• Animal walks: Bear crawl, crab walk, or frog jumps

• Heel-to-toe walking: Practice along a chalk line

• Catching & throwing: Use bean bags or balloons for low-pressure practice

• Cross-body movements: Clapping under knees, opposite elbow to knee taps

We’ll guide you on activities that suit your child’s age and stage.

On the other hand a retained primitive reflex is when this reflex shows up and is used again. This can be from things such as birth trauma, a fall, developmental restrictions or stress on the body and this causes the nervous system of the body to react to certain stimuli/movements or situations inappropriately or even undesirable. This is of concern as retained primitive reflexes if not integrated can affect development, learning and/or behaviour. 

• Fear Paralysis where your child may experience withdrawal, shyness, tantrums or anxiety

• Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex where your child may be easily distracted, have poor coordination or have messy handwriting

• Spinal Galant where your child may have difficulty sitting still or poor bladder control

• Palmar Reflex where your child may experience mixing up letters, poor spelling or slouching at a desk/computer.

• Juvenile Suck and Rooting Reflex where your child may experience speech/articulation or dental problems

• Moro Reflex where your child may be emotionally over-reactive and over sensitive

• Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex where your child may walk on their toes, have poor posture or coordination

• Tonic Labrynthine Reflex is the foundation for head control. If retained your child may have low tone, slump at their desk, be a toe walker, have uncoordinated movements, difficulty reading and writing etc.

This is just a brief example of what some of them are and how they can present (more obviously during school age). So although these primitive reflexes are imperative for survival of our little ones we can see that if they don’t integrate there can be a huge knock on effect to their development and their ability to thrive at school.

Please see the attached research paper for more information on Retained Primitive Reflexes.

See a simplified version attached : Primitive Reflex Screening Questionnaire for a preliminary self-assessment.

• We’ll have a management plan for you

• Stimulate the reflex each day.

• These videos here might help you to re-create the relevant home exercises we’ve prescribed if you’ve forgotten!

• Think: spinning, jumping, hanging upside down, hanging on monkey bars, core activation. The playground is an awesome place for this… and likely the activity your child avoids is probably the one they need to do :/