• Parenting OC Events
  • Calendar
  • Business Directory
    • After-School Activities
    • Attractions & Events
    • Baby & Maternity
    • Beauty, Health & Fitness
    • Camps & Activities
    • Education & Special Needs
    • Health & Wellness
    • Holiday Planner
    • House & Home
    • Montessori
    • Parties & Party Resources
    • Pre-K to 12 Education
    • Professional Services
    • Private Schools
    • Swim & Water Safety
    • Travel & Field Trips
  • Education
  • Ask Experts
  • Family Wellness
  • School News

Parenting OC

  • Get an Issue
    • Latest Issue
    • Distribution outlets
  • About us
    • About the magazine
    • Contact us
    • The Press Room
  • Advertise
  • Archives
    • Issue archive (digital)
    • Search old web site (text)
  • Contests
  • OC Woman
  • Follow us on Twitter
You are here: Home / The Pause Button / The Importance of Children Playing

The Importance of Children Playing

November 14, 2018 Leave a Comment

teacher playing with kids

A new clinical report stresses the importance of play for children.

If your pediatrician is up on the latest prescriptions for children, you’ll be told about whatever vaccines might be needed at this age and counseled about the importance of nutritious instead of junk food. And then you’ll be asked: Is your child getting enough play?

Not sports leagues or piano practice and certainly not video games. Just plain play: building with blocks, imagining up a traveling circus in space with stuffed animals, climbing a jungle gym at the park with friends, playing a board game, putting on a talent show, turning a large box into an imaginary boat or magic castle, drawing outside with the neighborhood kids using street chalk and maybe even joining in a lively game of hopscotch.

A new clinical report by the American Academy of Pediatrics outlines the critical importance of play for children and advises pediatricians and family doctors to start prescribing it for their patients. It expresses concern that kids aren’t getting nearly enough true play, and extols all the virtues of play for children’s mental, emotional and physical health.

“[I]t enhances brain structure and function and promotes executive function (i.e., the process of learning, rather than the content), which allow us to pursue goals and ignore distractions,” the paper says. It can do more to ensure children’s future school success than early academic instruction. “Social skills, which are part of playful learning, enable children to listen to directions, pay attention, solve disputes with words, and focus on tasks without constant supervision. By contrast, a recent trial of an early mathematics intervention in preschool showed almost no gains in math achievement in later elementary school.”

There’s more reasons to play than to just get good grades. It reduces stress, gets kids exercising, brings meaningful companionship and inspires creativity. It encourages kids to experiment and take healthy reasonable risks, the pediatricians wrote.

In addition, when children exercise during play—when they toss a ball with friends or family or play a wacky game of soccer with the family dog—they’re following their body’s own cues about how much physical activity is enough. As a result, they’re less likely to injure themselves through overuse of a particular part of the body, and more likely to see exercise as fun rather than as a boring or exhausting chore.

“Play is not frivolous,” the report says. In other words, true play is at least as necessary to children’s development as alphabet books, instruction in manners and music lessons.

But what is true play? Recognizing that the idea of play has been diminished in our time, the pediatricians did their best to set out some of the defining factors.

“The definition of play is elusive,” the report says. “However, there is a growing consensus that it is an activity that is intrinsically motivated, entails active engagement, and results in joyful discovery. Play is voluntary and often has no extrinsic goals; it is fun and often spontaneous.”

In other words, play isn’t something children feel pushed into. Adults might provide some of the tools for play—the toys, the art supplies, the spaces, the visits to the beach—but children dive into play because they want to. They usually find it fun, but sometimes you also see children working out issues that have been on their minds in their imaginative play, or trying to master a skill.

Our society has fallen a distance away from the idea of play as a basic part of life. Parents fear that if they don’t fill their children’s lives with “productive” activities such as music lessons, sports teams and self-defense classes, that somehow their kids will fall behind or waste their time. It’s a competitive world out there, and we understandably want to equip our children with everything they need to come out successful in that competition. Even many preschools have become more about pre-literacy and pre-math skills than play and joyful interaction.

The pediatricians’ report asks us to consider two vital ideas: (1) Play is something that children need in order to succeed, especially in a work world that demands more in the way of innovation and creativity rather than learned information and skills; and (2) All that success might be of limited use if in the process of pursuing it, we forget about bringing fun and joy into our lives. In fact, have you forgotten about your own fun? When’s the last time you played in a way that brought you a sense of creativity, excitement and joy?

You don’t need to wait for a visit to the pediatrician to bring the gift of more play into your children’s lives. For one thing, the pediatricians’ report says, you can set aside unstructured time. You can ask your children’s teachers about the ways in which they bring playful activities into the classroom and provide room for joyful creativity. You can provide the supplies and experiences that lend themselves to play—balls and inexpensive toys that lend themselves to imaginative play. Blocks and blank paper and crayons. Sand and pails and shovels. You can ask other parents in your neighborhood about joining together to provide time and opportunity for kids to play together, and bring your child to places such as the park where other children are playing.

And don’t forget about the value of you playing with your children, an important way that parents and children bond in happy, memorable ways, the pediatricians wrote. Just remember, they said: It’s for your child. Let children take the lead on which play activities they want to do with you, and how they want to do it. This isn’t the time for you to guide the activity—when it comes to play, kids are the experts.

By Karin Klein

Filed Under: The Pause Button

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Parenting OC February 2019 Cover - Web
Read our February 2019 Digital Issue!

Socialize with Parenting OC

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Search Parenting OC

Browse by category

Upcoming Events

Jan
26
Sat
2019
all-day Art Lessons In The Wild
Art Lessons In The Wild
Jan 26 – Feb 21 all-day
Dana Wharf Whaling Watching and the Wyland Foundation have partnered for this art and outdoors experience. Kids (ages 3-12) can take an hour-long art lesson (via video feed) from the famous artist Wyland and go[...]
Feb
1
Fri
2019
all-day “Dr. Entomo’s Palace of Exotic W...
“Dr. Entomo’s Palace of Exotic W...
Feb 1 – Feb 28 all-day
This exhibit recalls an old-school sideshow, except it’s all about insects. Visitors can view a wild array of creepy creeping creatures and other bizarre bugs. The show also examines some of the facts, myths and[...]
all-day “If I Lived In Castle” Exhibit
“If I Lived In Castle” Exhibit
Feb 1 – Feb 28 all-day
Kids can venture into a Medieval Castle and learn about life 1000 years ago. They can explore the Castle’s garden, kitchen and forge. Pretend to be a knight or act like royalty by trying on[...]
Feb
2
Sat
2019
all-day Art Lessons In The Wild
Art Lessons In The Wild
Feb 2 – Feb 28 all-day
Dana Wharf Whaling Watching and the Wyland Foundation have partnered for this art and outdoors experience. Kids (ages 3-12) can take an hour-long art lesson (via video feed) from the famous artist Wyland and go[...]
View Calendar
Add
  • Add to Timely Calendar
  • Add to Google
  • Add to Outlook
  • Add to Apple Calendar
  • Add to other calendar
  • Export to XML
Newsletter Sign Up Button Stay up to date on current events, hot topics, contests and giveaways by signing up for Parenting OC's bimonthly newsletter.
Feedburner Sign Up Button2 Subscribe to Parenting OC email service.


Parenting OC Tweets

  • It's that time of the year again! Our annual Summer Opportunities Jamboree is almost here and it is being hosted fo… https://t.co/Sjc1DyhFBN Yesterday at 5:58 pm
  • On Feb. 12, @LearningRx Costa Mesa-Irvine held its first OC Cognitive Reception at the Center Club Orange County wi… https://t.co/Uit73qcVOp February 16, 2019 4:55 am
  • Take a fitness-focused vacation with your sweetheart in this month of love. https://t.co/qkrhRE8lFa #fitgetaways… https://t.co/7N235y584A February 15, 2019 2:30 am
  • Follow Parenting OC on Twitter!

Recent Articles

  • Talking to Teens
  • Saving the Monarch Butterfly

Copyright © 2019 Tierney Publishing Inc. · Privacy policy · Web site: Internet Forestry · Contact · Advertising info