Often we don't look for much behind it or we don't look at it, but did you know that playing for children is incredibly important? In this article you can read all about playing for children and how you as a parent can encourage your child to play more.
Playing is important: This is why
Playing and learning to play is important for the education of your child. Not only do children train their motor skills when they play, for example by hopping, doing a tag or clambering in the climbing frame, the social skills in children are also trained while playing.
A few examples of these social skills are:
- Sharing toys with others
- Dealing with your loss during a game
- Explaining rules to other children
- Discussing an opinion and disagreement with others
What is the right age to start playing children?
At the question of what the right age is to let your child play, it is easy to answer: the sooner the better. Of course this does not have to be a complex game, start small, with a block box or, for example, by having your child play with hugs. If children are a bit younger, from zero to two years, for example, they are still busy discovering the world around them. As soon as children get older, playing together with other children becomes increasingly interesting. Usually when children are three or four years old, they really start to "learn to play".
Play alone or together with friends?
Some children are extroverted at a young age and enjoy playing with other children. There are also children who prefer to look the cat out of the tree, they still have trouble playing with others in the beginning. This is nothing to worry about. It is especially important to let this in its course.
Appointment with other children
When boyfriends and girlfriends come on the floor, that is of course great fun! It is a good idea to let the children play themselves. In this way they learn to develop their social skills faster - and sometimes it can just be fun without mum or dad. Does a word change arise or do the children disagree? Then you can always intervene, just don't do this too quickly. Paying quarrels is also a social skill that children can learn by playing together!
Tips for children playing
Do you want your child to get the most out of his or her playing time? Then we have a number of tips that help with this:
- Initial game. By starting yourself playing you invite your child to participate.
- Give compliments. When children play together, it is a good idea to compliment them.
- No = OK. If another child does not want to play with your child, it can be annoying. Yet it is good to teach your child to deal with this.
- Don't become a referee. Sometimes children can argue while playing, let this happen. In this way they learn to resolve conflict themselves. If it gets out of hand you can always intervene.
- let boyfriends and girlfriends come by. We get it, sometimes you are really not waiting for extra children on the floor. Yet it is good to let your child play as much as possible, both at home and with others.
