Benefits of Playing with your Little One
Play is such an important part of children’s development.
Young children learn a huge amount through play, research has shown that play helps develop cognitive, social, linguistic, and emotional development.
Play is something that is easily assumed to come naturally to children, kids play right? It’s just what they do? Yes, play is how children learn and for most children play comes naturally as they explore thier environment. Although, like many things related to raising children parental guidance can make a huge difference in supporting the progression of play skills. From my experience it can often be more difficult for parents to relax and join play than it is for children to learn play skills.
The good news a little input can make a big difference. Life is busy it isn’t realistic to spend hours on end playing with your children! It is a far better investment of your time to devote 100% of your attention for a shorter amount of time rather than sit there blank faced for longer stretches.
It is really rewarding as a parent to sit and enjoy time with your child even if it is only 10 minutes.
It can be really challenging as a parent to put your daily stressors to the side and enjoy a play session with you children. If you can master this though you and your child will both benefit. It is really rewarding as a parent to sit and enjoy time with your child even if it is only 10 minutes. The two most common reasons I hear that are stopping parents dedicating 100% of their time to sit and play with their child are: 1. They don’t have the time and 2. They’re not sure how to play with their child.
It is so easy to tell your child you’ll play with them later when they ask you to join them but deep down you know later might not never come. I get it there’s so many things that need to be done each day but there’s not many that can’t wait just ten minutes while you sit and spend quality time with your little one. Ten quality minutes spent with your child or children can make a significant difference to the family and from here you might find yourself being able to add in more ten minute play sessions over the day.
As an adult play can be a tricky thing to do. For many parents’ play isn’t something they’ve done since they themselves were a child. Here are some general tips for playing with your child:
1. Get down to their level: Get down on the floor to your child’s eye level. This helps you see the world from their perspective and gives lovely opportunities for shared enjoyment through eye contact
2. Be silly: Young children love nothing more than seeing their parents pull faces, sing silly songs and play funny games. Let go of your inhibitions and let your inner clown come out
3. Be present: As a parent we get so good at multitasking, this is the time to put that a skill aside and focus on your child and being fully present when interacting with them
4. Change up the setting: It’s completely normal for you and your child to get bored of the toys they are playing with and/or where they are playing. So, change it up! Go outside or to another room. Put some of their toys away for a week so when you bring them out again, they feel new.
5. Follow your child’s lead: Let your child be the boss, rather than telling them what to play and how to play let them decide and you join in. Wait and see what they gravitate to before joining. Help build on their play by extending what they are doing by showing them new things they can do with the toys they are interested in.
6. Don’t worry about messing it up: Have fun!! You can to the wrong thing when trying to play with your little one. Children are so forgiving, if you do something that doesn’t seem to work, laugh it off and move on.
Look out for my upcoming series of blogs for specific play ideas for different age groups. Good quality play interactions between children and parents helps strengthen relationships and develop skills for both the parent and child. So, get down and give it a go!