What do you suppose is the single most important experience a young child can have, that will have a significant impact on the entire rest of their life? Besides perhaps parental love, the simple answer is play.
For a young child play is critical, it is vital for their intellectual growth, for their social development, for their understanding of the world, of themselves, of language, of so much that makes so much of a difference to so much of the rest of their lives.
But simply saying that play is important isn't really enough, because there are many different types of play, different ways of playing, and different ways in which play can have a positive impact on the development of a child's brain.
So here are 3 different types of play, and ways in which it can be significantly beneficial to a child.
1. Active Versus Passive. Some toys are active, and some are passive. Which would you consider best? In fact passive toys are by far the best when it comes to the development of so many lifelong skills.
An active toy is one which does all of the action for the child. The child presses a button, sits back, and watches the toy move and shake and dance and clap and sing and flash its lights and do all sorts of exciting things. While the child just watches. Passively.
Active toys make for passive children, whereas passive toys.. yes, you've guessed it, make for active children. Not necessarily physically active, but intellectually or socially active.
For example, give a child a cardboard box, a pile of bricks and a cardboard tube, and let them get on with it. They will have a great deal of fun, and they'll be actively writing the rules, making the decisions, planning, testing, playing, experimenting and having a lot of creative fun.
2. Rules Versus Free For All. Sometimes having play which includes rules is important and beneficial. A board game for example includes rules, teaching children about taking turns, about waiting, about sharing, and about using strategies.
This type of play is great, but it is also important to introduce play that has no rules. It’s sometimes too easy to introduce rules into play which doesn't need them. So for example, if you were to give a child a box of dressing up outfits, then tell them to put on a superhero outfit and go to rescue someone might sound fun, and it might sound as though you as a parent are offering them helpful direction and ideas. But what you're actually doing is giving them rules.
Sit back and let them get on with it. Let them design the game, choose the rules and decide what's going to happen. It might be mad, it might not make much sense, but a child's intellect, creativity and imagination will be greatly benefitted.
3. Focus Versus Variety. If you find a child spending ages doing the exact same thing over and over again it is easy to assume that they are nearing boredom and that you should change the game, and introduce a new thing to play with or a new activity to do.
Yes, they have just built a tower of blocks twenty times and it has fallen down every time, but don’t be too ready to leap in and show them how to do it, or say never mind, let’s try playing this game instead. Children's brains are wired differently from ours, and they're programmed to want to try something over and over.
Yes, they may not get it right, and they may face the same problem time and time again, but it’s their brains way of proving theories, testing its understanding, learning about problem solving. If you rush in with the answer too soon they won’t have capitalised on the learning opportunity sufficiently to make it worthwhile.
It’s also important to leave them as this repetitive play can often result in them being utterly absorbed in what they’re doing, and they may well have monetarily blocked you out completely. This is good, because this is where they develop the ability to concentrate and to focus, something essential throughout life.