Playtime isn’t just fun, it’s a important element in children’s lives that helps them be successful. There are so many activities you can try with kids that they’ll love and will help them improve their crucial developmental skills and we’ve listed the top 5 ways that playtime can help your kids.
- Improve Social Skills
Social skills are one of the most important skills to helping you succeed in life. Children start their life in their own little world and developing the social skills that allows them to confidently meet new people takes time to learn. Playing team games are a great way that children can do this, by learning to build friendships and cooperate with each other. Let the kids choose a team game that they enjoy where they work together to achieve a common goal. Role playing games are also fun lets practice social situations in a fun environment. Here’s a list of some more fun activities that your kids can play to help improve their social skills.
- Emotional Intelligence
Many young children have problems identifying their feelings and struggle to find the right way to express these. Sometimes, they won’t have the vocabulary to express how they feel and will react in unpredictable ways. This is often seen in toddlers when they’re tired after an active day. We’ve all seen the dreaded temper tantrum when a child is tired, but this is all part of the learning experience in kids.
Playing with dolls or toy figures is a great way for children to become more understanding of emotions and what affects these. For example, if you enact social scenes with a doll and say things like “dolly is very happy so she her mummy a hug”, or “dolly is upset because her friend stole her toy”, these will help to improve their emotional intelligence.
- Develop Problem Solving Skills
Creative toys and fun games like hide and seek can help children develop their problem-solving skills. If you have a Lego set or some building blocks, children can have great fun building amazing structures to try and complete a vision they have. There’ll be stumbling blocks along the way, but these will challenge children and make them think of ways to overcome the problem. By playing these games and succeeding, it will give children the confidence to tackle problems later in life that are more serious.
- Become Independent
Playing one on one games with children will enable them to think for themselves and use their imagination. Also give children control over what they play to help grow their decision-making ability.
Participating in role playing games where kids have to act out imaginary situations will also help grow their independence as they have to think of fun things all on their own. This play will help set them up for future success as they learn to make their own decisions.
- Learn about the World
Playtime is an opportunity to learn about different professions and help your child think about their future and what they’d like to be. If you play games where you pretend to be people of different professions, these can be really fun. Children will often ask questions if they don’t understand a certain occupation, so it’s a great chance for them to learn about these
It’s an opportunity to learn about different professions and help your child think about their future and what they’d like to be. If you play games where you pretend to be people of different professions, these can be really fun. Children will often ask questions if they don’t understand a certain occupation, so it’s a great chance for them to learn about these.
Children can also learn about animals, countries and much more. If you get animal toys you can pretend play jungle scenes. If you don’t have any toys, you can imitate animals with pictures. Pretend to be an Elephant by using your arm as a trunk or pretend to be a rabbit by hopping around the garden. These will teach your child about different animals and increase their knowledge of the world. You can explain that different animals live in different countries and show them the different countries of the world.
Children are naturally inquisitive, and once they start learning they’ll want to increase their knowledge which will help through their education.
Conclusion
Playtime is a crucial factor in helping your children succeed in life. Luckily, it’s loads of fun for everyone involved, so take the time out of your busy day to play with your kids and you’ll not only have a great time, you’ll help them succeed in life. We hope you enjoyed our article and that you have fun!
