“Let Them Play”
For me, it has always been immensely enriching and rewarding to see young children indulge in play - whether it’s solitary or social play . Even today as an adult, when I look back at my childhood and think of the various games I played, I am left with a smile on my lips, warmth in my heart and life in my veins.
Every time I decide to write on a topic, I discuss my next topic with my close ones to seek their opinion. This time the topic of discussion was ‘Play’ and I was surprised to see how less informed they all were and how underestimated its importance was. For them it was just fun and games, unstructured, and meaningless indulgence. I thus took on the mantle of penning down my thoughts on this very important aspect of child development and growth.
An extremely busy lifestyle, increased emphasis on academic activities, addition of enrichment programs and change in familial structures from joint to nuclear units have resulted in reduced hours of free play for children.
As we all know that an adult’s life is shaped during the first five years of their life. Play underpins the foundations of a healthy body, mind and soul. Hence, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights has recognized play as a right of every child.
Associating play with learning:
Associating play with learning to reap maximum benefits for children has not received its due attention by adults. Studies have established a very important fact that play is learning and children learn through play. There are innumerous lifelong benefits of play. Play is the most essential, inseparable part of children’s life laying the foundations of physical, emotional, social, spiritual and intellectual growth along with language and communication development. Children derive inspiration from play. They create, pretend, conceptualize, question and are made to make decisions and critically think as they play. They develop skills of planning, strategizing, prioritizing, manipulating, cooperating, coordinating and spatial awareness through play. They explore their world through fantasy and imaginative play and it allows them to express their emotions, thoughts, inclination and aversions.
Lack of play:
Increased screen time, tech toys and gadgets have deprived children of play that do not aid in the development of social and psychomotor skills. These toys do not really help much in holistic child development. They do not give children the opportunity to explore, communicate, ask, think and fantasize.
Lack of play has long term negative effects on children’s development. Kids who have not had enough opportunities to free, unstructured and social play may be attention deficient, face behavior issues, suffer from lack of physical strength, are socially withdrawn and have emotional regulation issues. They may lack decision making, problem solving, creating, imagining, brainstorming and planning skills.
What does play mean to kids?
For different children play takes a different form and definition. Play of any form that is self-directed, provides freedom, encourages self-expression and helps in communicating a variety of feeling and emotions. Such play results in behavioral, social and psychomotor rewards. For children play is their work. When they are playing, they are working – working on their self-development: physically, emotionally, socially, morally, cognitively, literally, numerically, creatively and linguistically.
Types of play:
1. Unoccupied play: This form of play occurs in children from birth to three months. Children observe their surroundings, wiggle their hands and feet in air, random movement of the head; are all different forms of unoccupied play.
2. Physical play: Physical play is where children employ their physical self and provide exercise to the body. This type of play is social by nature because it involves other children. Such as jumping, hopping, and playing hide and seek.
3. Solitary play: The child plays alone. It helps the child to understand self-worth, to be meaningfully occupied and be self-sufficient. Solitary play is when the child plays with stuffed toys, costumes, blocks, musical instruments, toy figures and play tools.
4. Onlooker play: The child simply observes others playing and is a mere spectator. He does not participate in the play but that does not lessen the benefits in any way. It helps the child to develop confidence, learn rules and framework of the game, and develop vocabulary. As the child watches, he develops his own skills.
5. Parallel play: The children are playing side by side, each busy in their own world. They do not interfere in other children’s play nor do they influence others. This play is viewed as an important bridge between other forms of play. It may seem that the child is not paying attention to the other children’s play but in fact the child imitates behavior from other children.
6. Associative play: Although here too, they are not playing with each other but are involved with other children. They may have their own tower erected but as they are doing it they are talking to each other, communicating, socializing and they begin to make friends.
7. Cooperative play: At this stage, children come together and play in true sense.
8. Expressive play: Children engage in different mediums and materials to express themselves. Materials such as coloured pencils, crayons, paints, playdough, water, paper, musical instruments, pasta, cream, food colour, jelly and more are used.
9. Manipulative play: Children take control of their world by moving, ordering, turning screws or placing puzzle pieces in their proper place. It can easily be organized indoors and is solitary by nature but if sufficient resources are provided, more children can join in and it can turn into cooperative play. This could be stacking blocks, construction toys such as nuts, bolts, screws; thread items such as beads, pasta, reels; sorting things as per their colour, shape and size and more.
10. Symbolic play: When a child starts using things to symbolize other objects, he is engaged in symbolic play. When an infant picks an object and starts to move it, thinking of it to be a rattle; frying in the toy set pan; a block can become a car or a mobile phone are all forms of symbolic play.
11. Dramatic play: The child takes on various roles, imitating actions and speech from the child’s earlier life experiences. Children dramatize situations and emotions of the character they have taken on. They learn expression of ideas, feelings, thoughts and fantasies in a creative manner.
12. Familiarization play: This form of play permits children to handle and explore variety of equipment in a fun and a playful manner. This helps to prepare the child for a potentially fearful and painful experience. Children need to overcome the fear of doctors, nurses as they have to visit them sooner or later. However, we need to ensure that these opportunities are enjoyable and reassuring.
13. Surrogate play: In cases where the child is too ill or unable to play, a surrogate plays on behalf of the child. This surrogate serves as a stimuli and helps the child feel industrious, happy and motivated to think of their future wellness.
Conclusion:
Play is, therefore, imperative for the holistic development of children. Play should be given its due importance and supported and engaged by parents as well as the community as a whole.
Children learn essential lessons of life and develop life skills that they require now, as they grow and as adults.
