Articles

Power of Play
by Rosh Vettiveloo

Play? How can an activity as unimportant as childhood play be a vital part in a child’s overall development? Research has shown that a child who is deprived of play will have his overall development jeopardized. Children learn through activities they carry out via playing.

Children learn about their environment by actively acting upon it. Thus, play, provides a great opportunity for a child to learn concepts that we, as adults, take for granted. Who teaches a child that a ball is round and that it rolls?

Play actually helps a child achieve his developmental milestones. One can tell a child’s level of maturity by watching the type of play at hand. Ever seen children aged between
2 –7 yrs have a “tea party” or be “Spiderman”? Ever watch them play “masak-masak” or “doctor-nurse” and put their hearts and soul into the games. They would play these games over and over almost as if they were practicing to perfect it.

Once, perfected, they move on. Something amazing has taken place each time the children played these games. They learnt to make sense of experiences and imitate situations they have seen.

Contrary to popular believe, a child enjoys engaging in play. It is nature’s way of helping a child make sense of this world he is in. A toddler learns by accident (or playfulness) that if he pushes his bowl of food to the floor, that his mother or caregiver is going to drop whatever they are doing and go to him. If he does it often enough, he soon learns that he will be punished for it- he can get a reaction out of an adult as a consequence to his actions. What started out as a game to him, has taught him an invaluable lesson.

There are many stages in play – play development. Piaget explains play development beautifully.

In the first stage, a child engages in play to make sense of people and things around him. He plays by himself. This stage is called Solitary Play. A child in this stage will not play with others. Normally, this occurs when a child is between birth and 2 years of age.

From here a child will move into the next stage of play called parallel play. This stage occurs in the second and third year of a child’s life when a child is less self – centered or egocentric. In parallel play, a child will play his own toys and not share toys with another child. They may play side by side but with their own toys.

Parallel play progresses into associative play, which usually occurs by the end of the third year. A child learns that one thing can represent another. For example a hairbrush can represent a microphone but it remains but a hairbrush. It does not change in form i.e a child learns about symbolism.

Around the same age, a child also learns how to engage in co-operative play. They are able to recognize that in order to play together, there has to be a certain amount of give and take. A child learns to consider feelings and explore emotions through play. Of course, there will be many fights and “best friends” in this stage. This stage of play lasts for a while and many other lessons of life are learnt in this stage.

Older children beyond the age of 7years, who have had a sufficiently good play experience, will have developed good reasoning and logical thinking skills. They are now able to play by rules and learn to play more complex games.

Play cannot be rushed or speeded up. It is a natural process in child development. A child cannot be hurried through the process in the hope that he will be developmentally ahead of his peers. Play is nature’s way of helping children in the maturation process. It is good if children are encouraged to have a fulfilling play experience, which will lay the foundations for later life experiences.