Why Encouraging Your Child to Play is More Critical Than You Think

Anyone can tell you that children enjoy playing. Often times, as adults, we overlook the importance of play time to our children. Most adults take it for granted, exactly how important, playing truly is to proper development of the child. Because we are now grown and live in an adult world, we tend to dismiss the play as carefree, unimportant, and could even go so far as to consider it frivolous. While play time may indeed seem that way to us, it's actually quite critical to the proper development of our child.

Play time actually stimulates mental, social, emotional, and physical development within our child. I don't think anyone would argue that developing these attributes could be considered frivolous. A child has an enormous amount of energy. By playing, the child has an opportunity to expend this excess energy. By playing, a child is engaging and honing their small and large motor skills. A child also increases their strength and stamina through their play.

While at play, a child will further develop and strengthen their sensory learning. Believe it or not, but without playing, a child can not properly develop physically. By playing, a child's body will grow and develop physically at it should. Sensory learning develops mostly through play.

Human beings have a curious nature by default. Children, especially, have a curious nature. They can explore and fulfill their curiosity through their play. When a child is playing, they are exploring, learning, and absorbing the environment around them. The best thing we can do for our child is to ensure they have age appropriate toys, books, and games made available to them.

By playing, the child is setting foundations for learning. A child learns simple, but crucial concepts; like colors, shapes, counting, problem solving, and how to build things. Every time a child is at play, they are developing and sharpening their critical thinking, logic, and reasoning skills.

A child also learns communication and interaction while playing with each other. Playing teaches values such as: Sharing, obeying rules, and negotiating skills. Often, during play, a child learns about team work and is introduced to group dynamics. Through play, a child is able to make and keep friends.

When a child is at play, it also can give them a feeling of accomplishment. They also learn about giving and getting attention and they can develop positive self esteem. By playing, it allows your child to gain a strong sense of self worth and is emotionally fulfilling to them. They learn what is fair and through pretend, learn self expression. They explore such feelings and emotions as anger, fear, frustration, and stress. They begin to understand how to cope with these emotions and feelings.

By all means, do whatever is necessary to encourage your child to play. Engage in play with them. Color pictures, cut construction paper, finger paint, build things with blocks, have a tea party, make a fort in the living room to fend off the bad guys. Children grow up so fast. By encouraging their play, you will help them to grow up right. Let them be kids, while they are kids. There's nothing wrong with being a kid at heart, so don't forget to join in.