The secret to raising happy and confident kids is PLAY. Yes, you read that right and as Albert Einstein said, Play is the highest form of research.
Play has had its own journey from being essential to a distraction to a waste of time activity kids/adults indulge in. Recent studies and something our ancestors knew too well was, PLAY is an ESSENTIAL ingredient to early childhood development. For a child, Play is everything.
It is through play, that infants, toddlers and children, explore, engage and experience the world around them. Play is their way of decoding and processing the world and their role within it.
Through the various forms of play, like sensory, risky, messy, fantasy, pretend play, active play, they are constantly engaging their senses and making sense of what is happening around them. Engaging in variety of play forms help them develop necessary skills to not just survive but thrive.
All kind of play, structure or unstructured, impacts their overall development in the following ways:
- Play Fosters Cognitive Growth
- Play helps build imagination and creativity
- Play develops emotional and social skills
- Play encourages independence & problem solving skills
- Play promotes Gross motor skill development& physical fitness
- Play helps build fine motor skills
In short, play is pivotal to your child’s development. Children are naturally curious and we need to keep this alive. Curiosity is the essence of human existence. In these days of fast paced and packed schedules, we need to pause and think if we are providing enough opportunities for play. Let us make PLAY our priority.
PS: Did you know play is equally important for adults?! When did you play last?
