The Importance of Play in Child’s Development (6 Crucial Perspectives)
Playing is like learning. For children, play is their exploration and perception of the unknown world around them, and also a rehearsal of future survival skills. The importance of play shows in 6 perspectives: physical, emotional, social, cognitive, creative, and communication. Play can help children get better exercise, and also can develop their focus and creativity. The play itself is a process of learning. What they play is not important. What is important is to learn bit by bit from playing.
01 Physical
Play contributes to the growth and development of children. When children participate in specific games and plays, they will fully mobilize the functions of various organs of the body and stimulate the exercise of physical quality to complete the task and achieve their goals. As children grow older, they learn through play how to work together with others. Playing with other children provides a richer social environment which will increase the size of the prefrontal cortex. In humans, this means the brain is more efficient at making plans, solving problems, regulating and recognizing emotions.
02 Emotional
Play is a kind of relaxed, pleasant, and happy activity. It gives children positive emotions such as joy, happiness, and excitement. It also provides experiences that build self-confidence and pride.
In the game “the eagle catches the chicken”, the children playing the role of the mother chicken experience the mother’s heart and love, with their own body to protect the child and teach them to avoid being hunted. It helps build strong relationships with others and gives them a sense of pride and self-confidence when they complete a task or overcome an obstacle while playing.
For example, girls like to play role-playing. They use dolls to play the roles in society, such as teachers, policemen, scientists, and so on. In the play of playing doctor, the kids will act like they are real doctors to the patient, prescribe medicine, and then ask the patient to take the medicine on time. In a variety of complex ways, children explore how these characters are different and come to understand their place in their expanding social circle. Children can interact with each other through play, and their emotions will gradually develop and mature.
03 Social
Children need to play with more children than just their parents. Because peer communication helps to develop children’s sense of self. In the process of peer communication, children will be compared with others. In contrast, it can provide a reference for self-evaluation and help children lay a foundation for the formation of self-awareness. A good peer relationship, like a good parent-child relationship, can give children a sense of security and belonging to meet their needs for love and respect. Such positive emotions make the child in a happy, stable state.
04 Cognitive
Play contributes to the formation and development of cognitive function in children. Play allows children to engage the brain’s arousal more actively, processing the input, analysis, and output of information; The curiosity and interest in certain issues arising from play can greatly stimulate children’s thinking and creativity about things, and promote the development of cognitive functions of the brain.
If parents are good at observing and analyzing the play behaviors of their children, they will find that their children are getting to know this huge and fun world through playing every day. For example understanding objects in different states, understanding the relationship between objects and space, understanding orientation and direction, understanding oneself and the relationship between objects and space, and so on.
05 Creativity
Free play enables children to develop the ability to adapt to their environment. Unplanned play can be a huge benefit to children. It helps children become more creative, discover their passions and interests, and develop the ability to work well with others and adapt to their environment. In free play, the child is constantly trying new games and characters, which promotes the child’s rich imagination and creativity. This is why it is now advocated to let children build more blocks and play more Lego-like building activities. As well as early artistic creations such as painting and handwork. These are all ways to allow children to experience creativity and imagination in play. After such stimulation in childhood, the brain develops more evenly.
06 Communication
Children learn through play by exploring their environment and by interacting with others. Language communication ability is a kind of comprehensive psychological ability that reflects the characteristics of the individual and is also a basic ability for children to adapt to life and future development. And play is an important way to develop this ability in children. For children, play is their earliest and most basic communication activity, and the game process itself is the process of children’s communication. In plays, children often need to convert visual information, auditory information, and subjective feelings, wishes, or requirements into language, or make verbal responses according to others’ intentions.
In the play, communication language learning can be seen everywhere in the two-way interaction between children and adults, and between children and children. It can be said that communicative language is constructed in the process of active participation in activities. For example, in the game “Dollhouse”, when the child acting as the mother has a bad attitude towards his partner, the partner will protest: “Mother doesn’t speak like this. Mother speaks softly and gently.” The child playing the role of mother knows that she is not the “mother”, but she must change her way of speaking, try her best to imitate the “mother” speech tone, manage the “housework”, take care of the “children”, assign the “work” of the family, and communicate with the people around her so that she can learn the communication language more naturally.
The Importance of Play
Play is the best learning classroom for children, they can not only sing, dance, and play games happily, but also can learn a lot of helpful knowledge for their growth.
To let children learn through play, parents need to pay attention to the following:
* Pleasure is the first rule of play. Don’t force your child to play if they don’t like it.
* Play freely. Don’t turn the play into rigid learning.
* Don’t give your child too many instructions and commands.
* Keep trying new things.
* Reward your child for effort instead of rewarding them for success
Parents should realize the importance of play to their children. Play provides children with endless opportunities to learn. Curiosity, imagination, and creativity are like muscles, the more you use them, the better you develop them. Parents should give their children more opportunities to play, to hone their children’s bodies and minds so that children grow up happy.
Krsmoil children’s camera is also an educational toy that promotes children’s imagination and creativity. Give your children the ability to share their thoughts and ideas through art. The camera is perfect for exploring their creativity with a simple, easy-to-use camera that can fit in the palm of their hand. It’s great for taking selfies and family photos on vacation, at concerts, or just during a sunny afternoon out in nature!
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