Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

Author: Milenka Matić (Social Inclusion Blog)

Play is an omnipresent and universal aspect of childhood, globally recognized by its importance for the development of children. It gives children the precious opportunities of fun and learning. The importance of play in childhood has also brought to its frequent use in both the estimation of the child development and the conduction of psychological and educational interventions.

The notion of play is not easy to explain. There are numerous definitions of play and most of them implies several things: 1) play is a free, voluntary activity, 2) play is a purpose to itself, 3) play is a spontaneous activity, 4) play is liberated from external rules, and 5) play seek the active participation of those who are playing.

Play implies a certain level of autonomy because children have an active role in creating personal experience. While they are playing, children reconstruct their own worlds in order for them to be either less scary or less boring (Sutton-Smith 1999). Play is expressed in many ways including motoric games like running or jumping, symbolical games or role plays, social games and games with rules, constructional or didactic games. Through all these various forms, play is generally recognized by its spontaneous, voluntary and unpredictable nature and is followed by satisfaction and enjoyment.

In addition to this, play offers an ideal opportunity for parents to be engaged in joint activities with their children. Even though playing with a child can represent an additional effort for parents who want to get rest after a busy day full of obligations it is still important to find the time to play in one’s daily schedule.

How to play with a child?

Children like to spend time with their parents. It is important that the time parents spend with children includes the one-on-one relationship with every child as well as joint time for adults and children at home. It has been shown that parents and a child playing contributes to the child ability to give a structure to early social interactions.

Play creates the unique relationship between a child and parents. Joint play and active participation shows a child that they are loved and appreciated. It is an important link of investing in future because it opens the door for exchanging information on problems and dilemma as the need arises. Playing and observing a child while playing helps a parent get to know and understand the uniqueness of every child. Experts say that it is also a great means of reducing stress for tired parents.

It can be said that the families who play together cooperate more and have more open communication. All activities with children are reciprocated in many ways through increasing self-respect, social skills and sense of connection which helps children and teenagers judge better when dealing with difficulties and temptations.

Parents can help for the playing time to be pleasant, productive and safe. These are several suggestions how to help a child and organize the playing space which will be adjusted to them and their needs:

• primarily, the playing space should be safe and clean;
• the space should be organized so as to avoid too much stimulations – it is not useful to “burden” children with many different toys and sensations at once;
• children should be free to stop the game they started in order to be directed to new ideas and then return after some time;
• children’s toys should be stored in a safe place but they should also be made available to a child/children.

Children of different age seek and initiate various forms of games and adults’ support.

Your baby’s favourite toy is your face, that is, the face of a person who takes care of them. Watching parents’ faces, listening to their voices is the most important game for a baby. Smile when they smile, respond to their cooing, sing and speak to your baby. Babies are in a constant process of self-revelation, they learn about the world that surrounds them by watching, listening, chewing, smelling and grabbing. They need safe toys that attract all their senses and encourage their interests and curiosity. As they grow, a baby becomes more free in concurring new achievements and mastering skills. They start to explore objects with their little fingers and mouth. Therefore, it is important to provide babies with toys and objects they can take, grab, put in their mouth, manipulate, toys that make noise and jingle. One of your baby’s favorite game is playing “peekaboo” with a person or objects. A rattle should be mentioned among numerous toys. Such a simple and yet powerful means that encourages the development of hearing, experiencing and understanding sound.

One-year-old babies practice their first words, make their first independent steps and are prone to the constant exploration of the environment. Therefore, it is important to provide them with the safe environment for all motoric activities: crawling, lifting with objects, independent steps. Little children have a certain sense of caution but still adults have to keep an eye on them because at that age they like to climb everywhere, jump from a height, roll over and they are very engaged motorically. Opening and closing drawers, flipping things over and hiding things at different places – these are all ways for children to play, explore their world and learn.

The unstructured play is important at the age of the so-called toddlers, that is, children between one and three years of age. This play happens spontaneously depending on what a child is interested in. Allowing a child to create the course of the play independently is good. Leaving the initiative to them enables a child to use their imagination and make decisions independently. When a child plays you can ask questions which would encourage them to tell you about what they are doing. They will also show interests in games representing the imitation of adults (for example, phoning, pushing baby strollers). Maybe you will notice that your child wants to play the same game again or read the same book more times. Repeating activities are a way in which children concur skills and understand what they can expect in certain situations.

Children who are between four and five years old will like to move between reality and imagination while playing. For example, at that period a child likes to play family, thus adults should enable them to participate in some adjusted houseworks. They can also stack a larger number of blocks (about 10) and build towers of them. During this period motoric activity is also important to a child. Therefore, in accordance with their individual developmental pace they will probably like jumping and climbing, kicking a ball and different games involving running. The role of adults is to encourage a child to try various movements in the safe environment. Preschoolers are (even) handier in motoric games (skipping rope, catching games, hitting a target with a ball), they can classify things by several criteria and are capable of respecting the rules of joint game with other children.

Children can also play with things you already have at home. Children often show more interests in different available materials and objects than the toys you bought: you can find plastic containers with lids in every house, big plastic boxes, tearing paper, aluminium foil for creasing, tightly closed bottles full of small objects serving as rattles, home made plasticine, clean space for crawling, small boxes closed with tape for stringing, building etc. Each of these objects can be used in accordance with the child’s development age so that playing with it represents a challenge for a child.

Playing with a child implies active observing, listening, supporting, conversation and understanding. One more important element of play is also not to recommend different ways of playing and toys for girls and boys especially when they encourage gender stereotypes. Boys and girls strive to develop equally in all areas. That is why there is no need to limit them when they choose toys and games.

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Source: Social Inclusion Blog

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