5 Reason Kids Need Play
Children learn about themselves, their cultures and how their world works through play. Unstructured play provides learning through experience and exploration that is vital for children’s development.
What is Unstructured Play?
Unstructured Play or Free Play is a child-led activity that adults do not direct; it is more open-ended and creative, there are no predetermined rules, but if there are any rules, they are set by the children themselves. This is to test their own capabilities while giving them the freedom to explore.
Here are the 5 top reasons why play is important for children.
- Foundation for Healthy Brain Development
The first five years of a human’s life is vital for human brain development. This is when 90% of the human brain develops. According to science, healthier brains need a lot of neuron connections, and these neuron connections develop through experiences. A lot of neuron connections happen in the first five years. For children, play helps to create meaningful experiences and thus creating more neuron connections.
For instance, sensory play helps stimulates a child’s senses like touch, hear, smell, taste, and sight. It can be a simple sensory tray play made at home or even easier a child can go outdoors for nature play. Nature already provides all the sensory experiences a child need. Let them jump in muddy puddles, play sand at the beach or even walking barefoot on the grass.
Of course, it’s not just sensory play that provides experiences, but all types of play help children create experiences. Repetitive play also helps the neuron connections to be even stronger.
2. Good Social Skills
Humans are social creatures and having good social skills is essential as it is a lifelong skill that is needed as children grow up and navigate life. It is important for their future relationships with others. Play also helps them to develop empathy especially in future work that requires them to deal with other people. Play helps children develop these social skills.
There is research by Mildred Parten on the 6 stages of play that helps us adults see how play can develop these social skills. Ultimately, play should help children to be more confident in expressing their thoughts and ideas, be a good listeners, able to set boundaries, respect other people’s boundaries, have more empathy towards others, be able to make compromises and be team players.
3. Physical Development
Physical activities start when a child is born. Lots of tummy time helps them develop physically, they would start with rolling over, then crawling and walking. When a child is a bit older, they would be running, climbing trees, monkey bars, play at the swings, playing push bike. All these activities help children develop stronger muscles, better balance and flexibility and be more fit and healthy.
Physical play is important to avoid illnesses such as childhood obesity. It also helps children who hate eating to eat more as when they do physical play, they need more energy.
4. Emotional Development
The first 6 years is when children’s emotional development is vital. It is important for children to feel not just the positive feelings like happiness but all the negative feelings such as sadness, disappointments, and frustrations as well. Through play, children would sometimes experience these feelings, for instance when their friends are unwilling to share a toy, they would feel sad that they did not get the toy. An adult needs to support this just by acknowledging their feelings and showing empathy towards them.
Children also can learn to self-regulate through pretend play, they will better understand their feelings after going through the play process. Play also helps children to build self-confidence through being a leader in a group play setting.
5. Resilient Children
Older children would face a lot of issues themselves at school like bullying, homework stress, the problem with friends etc. Play can help children become more resilient in dealing with difficulties in their lives. Children also feel stress and play can help them manage their stress and feelings.
Pretend play helps children cope with changes and uncertainty. Risky play tests children’s limits so they know their own capabilities. Physical play can help alleviate their stress. Play can be a coping mechanism for children to handle all these issues in their lives and turn them to be more resilient.
There are many benefits of unstructured play for children. The first five years is the time to focus more on the physical, social, and emotional development of a child. You can never go wrong with the play.
