Embracing Play!

Play is essential for young children. It is a child’s basic right and a child’s way to communicate and learn. Play is organic and comes naturally to all children. Their brain is hard wired to play and make connections to the world around them.

It helps them learn and grow in many ways. The recent advance in neurosciences shares a wide range of advantages of play for young children and their early brain development. Many emphasize its long-term impact on academic performance and future life trajectory and development. Parents and caregivers need to not just only acknowledge the fundamental importance of play in a child’s life but also provide ample opportunities and resources to facilitate play in young children’s routine.

In doing so, parents and caregivers should know why is play important, what are different types of play, how play can be integrated in routine and what resources facilitate play. There are different types of play, whether physical, indoor, or digital, allow children to reach important developmental milestones that are crucial for their future.

Physical Play: Physical play, like running, climbing, and playing sports, is vital for developing strong muscles, coordination, and overall health. These activities help children learn about their bodies, improve their balance, and understand how to move in space. When kids play on a playground, they also learn problem-solving by figuring out how to navigate equipment and take safe risks. Additionally, physical play teaches social skills. Games with rules and teams help children learn to cooperate, communicate, and understand others’ feelings. Working together on a team or negotiating rules helps kids feel part of a group, which is important for their emotional development.

Indoor Play: Indoor play, such as building with blocks, drawing, and pretending, is crucial for fine motor skills and cognitive growth. These activities stimulate creativity and imagination, allowing children to explore different ideas and scenarios safely. For example, when kids play pretend, they practice language skills and learn to express emotions through their characters. Playing with puzzles and construction toys helps children solve problems and think critically. These activities also introduce basic math concepts and teach them about cause and effect, which are important for later school success.

Digital Play: Today’s world includes digital play, like interactive apps, educational games, and virtual reality. These can be great tools for learning and help children become comfortable with technology, a skill that is increasingly important. However, too much screen time can be harmful. It’s important to balance digital play with physical and indoor activities to ensure kids stay active and socially engaged. Too much screen time can reduce physical activity and face-to-face interactions, which are crucial for healthy development.

Every type of play is vital for young children’s growth and development and parents and caregivers should provide a fine balance and exposure of a variety of play to young children. It is also important to consider the following:

• Facilitate and supervise both genres of play. Structured and unstructured. Structured play is when a parent or a caregiver has a competency or a skill in focus around which play is designed and unstructured play is when a randomly selected resource/activity to play is initiated without having any intention of a targeted learning competency in mind.
• Do not overdose children with toys. Toys are good for development if selected based on child’s interest, safety, age, and proficiency level. Too many toys distract children. They may lose interest and focus. An ideal way is to have a set of toys that promote multiple sensory stimulation, are focused on building a new competency in young children and are focused on building school readiness skills. Promote a rule, once children have comprehensively used their toy, it can be donated to other children of similar age. Have a policy, give one: buy one. This way children learn to enjoy fully limited resources, have a sense of empathy, and know that they will not get everything that they demand. This also brings a balance in their self regulation in modulating their needs and learning to be patient. When selecting toys, avoid gender biases. Remember, children are children. Choose toys without segregating them by color or type.
• Integrate technology to facilitate play: Download applications that promote cognition and literacy skill enhancement. Do not use technology to substitute your presence or getting kids to sleep or eat. Use technology for digital play based learning. There are many applications that have a robust mechanism to enhance young children’s language skills, numeracy skills and support early reading. Digital technology can be beneficial if used mindfully.
• Engage children in naturalistic play: Take children out to play in open. Social interactions, positive competition, exposure to outdoor world, and playing in mainstream has in numerous benefits on their early social emotional learning. Parks, school grounds, and playing in balcony can promote critical thinking, creativity and decision making. It is super helpful to develop executive functioning skills.
• Use low cost – no cost and real-life resources at home and centre to play: Children love things they see around. Let them explore world using real life objects. They tend to play using anything and everything – anywhere! Let them do it. Just ensure the things around children are safe. There is nothing more beneficial than children picking up leaves and exploring colors and textures, banging spoons on the table to learn about sounds, and playing with your face to identify its different parts. Be natural, be simple and encourage no cost and low-cost play. It is good for the environment as well as for young children’s early literacy development.
• Ensure play is a key part of their routine: While scheduling time for sleeping, napping, reading, homework, and hygiene, don’t overlook the importance of play, especially in the early years. Play is essential for children’s growth and development.

Play is not merely an act; it is a vital catalyst for a child’s growth and learning. Embrace and prioritize play to nurture creativity, problem-solving skills, and emotional health, ensuring well-rounded development. On this International Day of Play (celebrated on 11th June). We advocate for children’s right to play. Our message to caregivers, teachers, parents, and policymakers: champion the value of play in every child’s life. Together we must create opportunities and environment to support play through which our children can thrive.

Dr. Shelina Bhamani holds a PhD in Education and leads ECD PREP at the ObGyn Aga Khan University. Laiba Zaman volunteers in ECD PREP at the Department of ObGyn AKU and is a student at UC Davis California.