What Do Children Learn During Exercise and Play?

You may have noticed that when children come home from an afternoon of play, they look exhausted. That is because, in most ways, they are. Playing is hard work and exhausts the mind and body of the young person. This is why play is such an important part of becoming healthy, productive people.

Exercise and play in a young person's life provides many benefits. Keeping healthy and fit is important for the body and its development. Most people who exercise when they are young will continue that when they are adults, resulting in a healthier individual.

Other opportunities that play affords can give other gains to the child as well. Participating in organized sports, coordinated play times, and similar activities helps the child socially. Playing in this way helps the child learn to interact with peers, develop friendships and camaraderie, and to learn the value of working as part of a team. These are absolute essentials for healthy adult living as well as working in today's business climate. During this same, time, though, other things are also happening.

These activities teach body language, coping skills, and the mind-body interaction. The child learns how to interact with others and with him or herself. Learning to interact with others is vitally important to social development, but learning to interact with yourself is very important to personal health and wellness. Learning to listen to our bodies, to understand when physical or mental things are not quite right, is invaluable in having a healthy life as an adult. Seeing how others do this and learning to do this yourself is a very important part of childhood development.

During this play, we also learn what our limitations are and how we can push them to change them or work with and around them to achieve more. During play, most children will push themselves to the very limits of their abilities. As children, we are not susceptible to the pressures of the world as we are when adults. Children are better keepers of their bodies, being in tune with them, whereas as adults we usually let outside influences make decisions for our bodies and dominate our time.

The benefits gained during healthy exercise and play are great and will affect a child throughout its life. Too often, we as adults forget the importance of exercise and play to keeping us fit and happy. We try to rush our children and ourselves into our daily responsibilities without regard for playtime and the mental and physical exercise it brings.