Playful activity helps the child to love learning, which will be useful throughout his life.
Child psychologists and kindergarten teachers are increasingly asserting that modern preschool education does not take into account the peculiarities of child development.
Curriculums and the whole system of pre-school education interfere with the natural learning of children. They are taught things that are beyond their capabilities and not appropriate for their age.
From early childhood, the education system strives to make children the best and most outstanding. However, many parents and caregivers do not see this as a problem.
We want our children to be successful first in kindergarten, then in school, and then in adulthood. But trying to find the right path to success leads us astray.
Many people think that in kindergarten a child should learn to read, write and master elementary arithmetic operations. Parents want teachers to use handouts and set homework assignments during class. But for kids, it doesn’t really matter.
Play is the main activity for children. They want to use their senses to explore the world around them. They are trying to figure out how things work and how they can be used. For them, the whole world is a laboratory, and for research they do not even need the help of adults.
Through play, children develop a love of knowledge. At first, they manage their own learning process. This is important in order not to stop learning throughout life.
In an ideal world, both children and adults would have the opportunity to learn by learning about the world around them. However, in reality, they receive most of the knowledge by listening to lectures and memorizing their content. But this does not develop their critical thinking skills.
“Too many facts and little conceptualization, too much memorization and little thinking” – this is how psychologists characterize the modern education system.
The children who were tried to grow geniuses suffer from insufficiently developed problem-solving skills as a student.
The reason for this, psychologists say, is the fact that kindergarten teachers paid too much attention to their learning and allowed them to play too little. Children lose the opportunity to develop perseverance through play – a skill that is extremely important in the process of further learning and brain development.
Therefore, child psychologists today are trying to convey a simple message that educators already know so well: you need to go back to basics and let kids play. This is the only way that will help them love learning and grow up successful.
Often, parents are so concerned about the day-to-day concerns of feeding, raising and caring for their children that they forget to include one of the most important items on this list – playing with their child. This mistake needs to be corrected.
Why is playing with kids so important?
For children, the game is the main thing of childhood. When a child (even an infant) plays, he solves the problems of developing motor skills, as well as overcoming physical and psychological difficulties.
Play is the way children learn about everything from trading toys with another child to learning fine motor skills while building brick pyramids.
So, we understand why games are so important for children, but what do they give parents? Playing with a child provides a great opportunity for parents to interact positively with their child. They can also have an incredible impact on a child’s self-esteem.
Most of the time you spend with your baby, especially in today’s hectic lifestyle, is filled with feeding, bathing or raising your little one. But he just as much needs you to spend time with him, interacting at his level and reinforcing his belief that his thoughts, desires and actions are important to you.
When you take the time to play with your children, they will learn that you accept their imagination and creativity, and that everything they say or want to do is very important and interesting to you.
If you don’t know how to play with your child
Many parents are at a loss when it comes to how, in fact, to properly play with their child. And that’s okay. No one teaches us parents how to do it.
We spend a lot of time and tend to feel more confident when preparing dinner, taking the child to school or scheduling a consultation with a pediatrician, but when it comes to exactly how to play or interact positively with a child, we often need to consult ourselves.
The first and most important step is simply to take the time for the child and allow him to take the lead. In this case, the most important thing is the time and attention that you can give to your baby.
Depending on the age of the child, find out what game he would like to play. Your willingness to give him a leadership role will strengthen his self-esteem and give you a positive and supportive role.
Games also affirm your child’s growing self and may actually lead to less stress in his quest to achieve leadership, allowing him to assert himself in a meaningful and positive way.
The main rule is no rules
Sometimes it can be difficult for parents to sit back and follow their child’s lead. This can mean advancing the gameplay at a very slow or very fast pace. This may mean repeating the same action more than 20 times.
Trust that these focused and repetitive activities are valuable in the early years of a child’s life for the development of his cognitive and communication skills.
It can be difficult for you to keep your interest and cool, but the point is to allow your child to direct the game, from the initial choice of the game to the decision of how long and how to play it. The only rule for parents is not to set rules, not to guide the child and not to rush.
Your goal should be to allow your child to make decisions, such as choosing a book, what color to paint a certain section of the coloring book or deciding when to destroy a pyramid of blocks.
It may seem difficult but try to focus on these opportunities as another chance to learn more about your child, what he likes and how he sees the world.
Different games for different ages
When we talk about play, we are really talking about positive interaction with the child through fun and engaging activities. Different children like to play in different ways, and that’s okay.
Sometimes even siblings choose completely different styles of play, which places a responsibility on parents to make time for each child so that each child can take a “leading role” in your interactions with them.
Every age has its own kind of games.
For an infant, a play can begin with you listening carefully to his cooing and answering him in turn. At this age, simple eye contact can be a positive interaction as well as motion sickness or singing a song.
Simple ways to interact positively with your baby:
- The game “Guess where mom is”
- The game “Crawl to the rattle and see how it works”
- Rolling the ball back and forth or rolling the ball with your tummy.
- The game “Touch my palm”
- The game “We look in the mirror and name the parts of the face”
For toddlers a little older, games begin to become more active. It will be interesting for you to see where your moving child wants to go.
You can:
- Follow him, watch him (safely) move around the house and yard and name everything that comes his way.
- Read aloud to him, leaving him the right to choose a book. Offer him those books in which, with the help of illustrations, you can ask him to make animal sounds or point to objects that he knows: “Where is the cat?”, “Where is the ball?”.
- Play catch-up or ride on your parents’ shoulders.
- Ask him where his nose, eyes and ears are so that he can confidently point to them.
- Color the coloring book together. Parallel play is shown at this age, which means that children play together with one parent or with another child, simply doing the same actions at the same time.
For elementary school children, play is an important way to reconnect with you at a time when they are already spending much more time away from you, interacting with teachers and classmates.
The time you spend with them is special, it reinforces your positive attention to the child and allows you to learn more about him at a time when his personal preferences and social skills are developing.
You can:
- Ask your child to choose a board game to play with the whole family.
- Play with cartoon characters, dollhouses, construction sets and comment on everything that happens to encourage the child’s imagination. If you say, “I see you built a house next to the lake…”, the child is more inclined to explain and expand his train of thoughts about what he is doing; he feels that you are closely and with interest following the development of the situation on the playing field.
- Choose outdoor activities such as playing ball, swinging or planting seeds.
- Ask your child to help write greeting cards for your relatives or cook dinner. This type of “play” makes your task more fun; just remember to focus on the child himself and not on his handwriting or on the accuracy of following dinner recipes.
For teenagers, games are quickly replaced by more mature (but nonetheless positive) activities. While options like playing ball in the yard or playing a board game are still fine, parents can also try the following activities:
- Ask your child to organize or plan a cultural outing for the whole family to a theater, museum or football match. Ask him to choose the format and time of a joint family event, to book tickets and enjoy it with the whole family.
- Ask for a family movie night. Let the child choose a movie, cook hot sandwiches or other treats with you, after which you sit comfortably in front of the screen, having a good conversation after the movie.
- Take your child as a partner in furnishing your home, let him choose the color he would like to paint his room in and make it happen together.
Make play an integral part of your relationship with your child
Parents are very busy these days. In a family schedule, play may not seem like the most important thing, such as “vacuuming the floor” or “washing the laundry,” but parents must make a commitment to make time for their children.
Take it for granted that playing with your child is a very important tool for their development, both educationally and emotionally.
Just think of it as if you get the opportunity to have fun doing something incredibly important for your family, not to mention that time spent with your child can significantly improve his behavior, strengthen communication skills and harmonize his life.
Conclusion
Every day, parents perform an endless number of necessary tasks: cooking, paying bills, buying groceries and necessary things and much more. This list should include one more very important thing, which is not at all burdensome or boring.
For some reason, parents often feel guilty if, without having time to do a thousand things at once, they spend time playing with their children, which brings them pleasure instead of the usual business anxiety and distracts them from important matters. It is not right.
An incredible amount of work is indeed part of parenting, but it also includes daily play interactions with a child that brings joy and happiness to everyone involved.