The primary benefit of play is physical development. Play avails the opportunity for a child's body and minds to develop. Through group games, children can enhance their neuro-muscular activities providing exercise for different parts of their bodies. Additionally, children are allowed an outlet for their energies. Play is also vital in mental development as it avails an opportunity for physical energy expression. These strengthen children's emotions and refines their instincts of constructiveness, curiosity, gregariousness, and combat. Through play, children can gain information concerning varying objects and situations. Children can build skills and information relating to worldly and school subjects enabling them to develop balanced personalities.
Play trains the heart, head, and hands.
Play enables a child to comprehend his or her capacities and compare their level in a group. There is also the benefit of moral development in which through play, children learn aspects of self-restraint, courage, honesty, self-reliance, justice, and sportsmanship. Play and make-believe is a therapeutic cure to any maladjusted children who may be suffering from mental tension. According to the cathartic theory, play allows children to release any pent up emotions through fantasy and make-believe. Additionally, play motivates learning trends since if incorporated into learning, any subject, however dreary or dull, becomes more interesting and warms up the children's attitudes. Finally, play can be an index to sporting careers. Children are often interested in particular activities from an exceedingly early stage in life. A child's constant attention on a specific kind of play can act as a predictor for a future career. For instance, Napoleon, during his early childhood days, used to prefer leadership roles during, and eventually, he became a great leader.
Forms of Child Play
Children's primary activity is play, and it can be considered their work. Children can learn a lot and grow through play, and therefore, it is necessary to understand some of the forms of play and know how to facilitate them during childhood. Through Jean Piaget's and Mildred Parten's theories, there are two forms of play that include cognitive and social play. Cognitive types of play include construction play, functional play, symbolic play, and games with rules. On the other hand, social forms of play include solitary play, associated play, cooperative play, unoccupied behavior, parallel play, and onlooker behavior.
Facilitating Play
For a teacher, facilitate play by focusing on the process rather than its goal. There is a need to ask exploratory or rhetoric questions that can assist in extending a child's play. Additionally, it is essential to identify and build on individual interests offering varied material and supportive comments. Providing diverse materials ensures that the children can explore more, and one can be able to encourage them to do more and adjust the limits of their play. It is exceedingly essential to define any existing problems and assist children in learning negotiation skills, which enable them to think of alternatives in stressful situations. Finally, it is vital to reveal the various emotions that children express during playtime. This type of play validates the children's feelings towards game and ensures that they enjoy what they are doing.
