What is the value of play? Why is play important for children?
Here is how Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton (Professor of Family and Child Nursing and Director of the Parenting Clinic at the University of Washington) answers these questions:
- The most obvious benefit from play is that it aids physical development. When children run, jump, skip, yell, and laugh, it contributes to their good health and the development of gross motor skills as well as perceptual motor skills.
- Play is a learning situation for children and parents. Play is an opportunity for children to learn who they are, what they can do, and how to relate to the world around them. Through play, children are able to discover and explore, use their imagination, solve problems, and test out new ideas. Through these experiences children gradually learn how to gain control over their environment, and they become more competent and self-confident. How often have you heard a child proudly say, “See what I did?” play allows children to push the limits in a positive way, to extend what they’ve learned as far as they can. It gives children the freedom to fail and make mistakes, and the opportunity to explore the limits of their skills.
- Play is a means of emotional expression. Children live in a world where they have little power and few legitimate opportunities to express emotions such as anger or dependency. Fantasy play can reduce feelings of fear, anger, and inadequacy, and provides experiences which enhance children’s feelings of enjoyment, control, and success.
- Through play, children can communicate thoughts, needs, satisfactions, problems, and feelings. An adult can learn a lot about a child’s feelings of joy, hope, anger, and fear by watching, listening to, and talking with a child at play.
- Play is a place for children to try out roles such as mother, father, aunt, teacher, and doctor. Role Playing gives children a chance to see the world from other points of view, and helps them become less egocentric.
- When children play in a supportive environment, they can be creative. They are free to try out their imagination, explore the impossible and the absurd, and develop confidence in the value of their thoughts and ideas. During make-believe play, boxes, blocks, and articles of furniture can become houses, palaces, or entire kingdoms; doll figures can turn into mothers, children, and even monsters.
- Play develops the basic skills for social interaction. Children learn how to cooperate, share, and be sensitive to the feelings of others during play.
For the child, play is not frivolous – it is an opportunity for growth and development in almost every area. But it takes practice for children to become competent, creative, and self-confident in their Play. It is important for adults to actually participate in Play activities with children, and to create a supportive environment so that children will engage in a variety of Play experiences.
© Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton (Used with permission) |
