It is so important for kids to have unstructured, free play time. Play isn’t just good for your kid’s body. Play actually helps your child’s brain grow and learn.
See the following reasons why children need to play.
1. Play is necessary in order to help children develop social skills, because they learn to get along with others. Play helps children gain healthy emotional development because it allows them to express their conscious and unconscious experiences regarding their feelings about their life and things that are going on around them.
2. Pretend play uses many parts of the brain, including language, movement, emotion, and thinking. It also helps kids figure out how things work and how they fit into the world, and it lets them explore new roles.
3. Family life and child behavior problems can be improved when more child-led playtime is allowed on a frequent basis. When parents play with their children in a way that allows the child to decide what they are going to do and with the parent simply being with the child and interacting with them at the child’s level, parent-child relationships and family life can be improved.
4. Play allows children to identify, express, and learn about feelings. Children often use pretend play to act out things they see in their lives, such as what their mom and dad are like, experiences that occur at school, or what friendships are like. Children become more aware of their own and others’ feelings and how to manage feelings by expressing them and working through emotions in play.
5. Parents can significantly improve their relationships with their children by learning how to play with them in a specific way using selected toys.
6. Board games teach kids about rules, decision making, taking turns, and social skills. The games can also help your child work on important early math skills like counting, as well as color and shape recognition.
