The Importance of Play in Child Development

This report highlights the benefits of playing in child development and the disadvantages of not playing. It emphasizes the importance of play in nurturing relationships, building empathy and creativity, and supporting growth. The report also discusses the impact of video games and the importance of outdoor play. Parents are encouraged to provide guidance and support for a healthy balance between play and other activities.

THE IMPORTANCE
OF PLAY IN CHILD
DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Play nurtures relationships with oneself and others. It relieves stress and increases happiness. It
builds feelings of empathy, creativity, and collaboration. It supports the growth of sturdiness and
grit. When children are deprived of opportunities for play, their development can be significantly
impaired. This report (Kelley, 2016) highlights the benefits of playing as well as the
disadvantages of not playing in a detail manner. It covers everything that how it helps them to
develop and improve their skills and capabilities so that they can get the benefit of that in future
and how it will affect the kids in a negative manner. im[importance of playing has been
highlighted in this report and how it will benefit the children in future and if they do not follow
then it will create difficulties for them.
MAIN BODY
Playing games is an essential activity for children as it helps in improving their power of
imagination, physical and emotional strength and overall it helps in developing the physical as
well as the mental strength of a human body. This aspect is the reason that how children learns to
interact with others and engage in a conversation with different people unknowingly. Children
learns to play and coordinate with others. They also make new and different sounds just for fun.
Engaging in a conversation (Cohen, 2018) with others helps and improves their skills of
vocabulary as they practice it with telling stories. Playing develops and nurtures the need of kids
and it helps them to improve their abilities and skills as a team and alone. It is advised that
parents of children must encourage and boost the morale of the children so that it will be helpful
for them in future as there are many opportunities in sports to make a career. Even if we keep
that thing aside then also it is necessary for them to support them so that they tend to play with
interest. It helps them to become spontaneous and improve their reflexes. It (Sosa, 2016) helps
them to increase their limits and capabilities as well as their stamina so that they can play or
exercise for long without getting too tired. They must be given time and their own space so that
they can work on improving their abilities. If they are playing under pressure then they won't be
able to perform well or play well enough which will make a bad impression and loose their
morale. Allowing them space will allow them to choose their own game of interest and they will
work on learning and gaining expertise on that game. It will help the children to form up the
team with other kids and play together which will improve their social skills. While engaged in
games children learns to know about their surroundings. Getting to know about their

surroundings will help them to learn about their movements of body and apply rules in the game
so that they can learn (Charles and Bellinson, 2019) to play fairly in the game. Playing helps a
child to explore in various activities and test their own abilities and capabilities. Apart from all
the useful things they learn to enjoy playing with others and make it a regular habit as it is fun
for them. It helps them to share things with others, compromise a matter rather than engaging in
a conflict or in an argument. For babies even taking a toy into a mouth or throwing it away is
playing. It helps babies to develop some concepts at an very early age. Children will play till
they are young and till then they will learn that how to solve a problem, how to be flexible
according to the situation, balancing their emotions, overcoming their fears or trying out new
things out of their expertise. It helps them to rectify their own mistakes or wrongdoings. When
children gets young some of them develops a passion for the game or any other activity such as
art and (Wilkinson, 2017) all because of playing as it helps a child to explore different areas.
Parents must supervise their children into playing when they are very young as it will help them
grow personally and be flexible and fit when they grow old. It helps an individual to explore
which sport or activity is suitable for his body. Playing helps in forgetting the children about any
kind of stress as it is fun and take out all of their time. It will help them to figure out on new
ideas so that they can improve the experience of gaming and learn to research (Tuber, 2019)
about new things and ways of playing. To make children learn it is advised that adults must make
them learn the importance of creativity. Children must be allowed to play with bricks, sand,
water, dirt, wheelbarrows, ramps and balls so they use creative measures and make playing with
them useful. Still they must be under the guidance of someone so that they can play carefully and
nothing hurts them while trying out (Bruce, Hakkarainen and Bredikyte, 2017) new things. If the
adults or parents of the child set a play date for them then they can meet new people and start to
play with others which will develop their personality. Allowing them to play outside and play
with others will raise their level of confidence which will help them and benefit in the young age
as well as in future. Parents must support them but they need to be more careful as they don't
know the difference between right and wrong.
There are many things which adults need to keep in mind as they must know that more
allowance can affect and shift their interest from studying to playing. There are also negative
impacts of playing (Higdon, 2019) such as distraction from studies, meeting with an accident and
getting injured which can develop a fear in their mind. If they are not guided on to a right path at

a young age then it will reflect on their academic skills. Apart from this adults also needs to keep
in mind that their children must no get under a bad influence as it will impact in a negative
manner on their personality. If they are not kept away from them then it can lead to change in
their whole career path as they won't be caring about discipline any more which will have more
chances of negative possibilities for their future. Most of the children gets injured while playing
even if they are under the guidance of someone. There are some ways by which these things can
be avoided such as plan the time for outdoor games which is safer for kids so that they can play
in an safe environment. An eye must be kept on them to ensure that they play with those tools
which are suitable according to their age. To keep them healthy they must remain hydrated so
that they don't feel weak while playing the game. If the child is not encouraged to play outdoor
games with others then in a technological era they (Bento and Dias, 2017) will tend to play more
indoor games and that too video games which will not help them to develop their social skills
and physical health of the body. These type of children remain more isolated then others and it
can impact deeply on their mental health in a negative manner as children gets addicted to it
specially those who are young. There have been games which has taken the lives of kids as well
as adults such as Pokemon Go and Blue whale challenge which literally has killed people as they
were too busy or too addicted that they did not care about their surroundings. This is the reason
why children needs to be stay away from those games. These type of games are easily accessible
and can be played alone. Children who are not able to socialize with others tend to get addicted
to these games more than who have social skills. Apart from this these type of games can reduce
their chances of making a career in academics as well as sports as it requires constant attention,
focus and practice to excel in that area. These types of games weaker their power of creativity,
adds a load to their eyesight at a very young age, stops from developing your communication as
well as imagination abilities. Some people believe that this led the children to become an
introvert and violent in future as when they won't be able to engage in a conversation with people
it will led to increase in levels of anxiety and depression which is a riskier disorder mentally. It
makes the kids learn values which are wrong and not legal as it can lead to trying out stunts like
they do it in game which can affect the people real bad. They tend to get more violent in games
which makes them guilty. Video games may also have bad (Nijhof and et.al., 2018) effects on
some children’s health, including obesity, video-induced seizures. and postural, muscular and
skeletal disorders, such as tendinitis, nerve compression, carpal tunnel syndrome. When playing

online, your kid can pick up bad language and behaviour from other people, and may make your
kid vulnerable to online dangers. Often posing as children, sexual predators and other bad actors
are meeting kids online through multiplayer video games and chat apps. Some of the parents
feels that playing video games is beneficial as their kids will not catch any germs from outside
and go under a bad influence with others. They believe that keeping them near themselves will
make them learn good things and allowing them out is unsafe for them as they can get injured
there but it will affect their room to improve and develop their potential in many different areas.
They won't be able to take decisions without consulting the adults even when they get old.
Above that they won't have the confidence to walk with others with a free mind as they will
always have something negative and unsatisfied feeling in mind which will stop them to develop
their skills of interaction with others. If they are not allowed to play outside then they won't be
able to balance their emotions and have a sense of matching them according to the situation or
with other people.
CONCLUSION
From the above studies it has been concluded that children needs to be encouraged to play
outdoor games so that they can develop their interest in a respectful field and learn to gain the
expertise in that area. It will also help them to develop their power of imagination, be more
creative in many areas improve the ability of engaging in a conversation and solving the
problem. It will also help them to remain fit if they continue to play for long. Proper guidance is
needed so that they cannot get hurt while playing or does not get accompanied by bad people
which will reflect negatively on their attitude and behaviour. If the children are not encouraged
to go play with others at a young age then they will tend to play alone on video games which will
led to stop on developing the abilities of individual rather than improving their skills and abilities
as it makes a child very addictive and change their nature and behaviour which is a typical
introvert and overall this will affect the academics and health of the child with that he or she may
loose the opportunities in the future.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Bento, G. and Dias, G., 2017. The importance of outdoor play for young children's healthy
development. Porto Biomedical Journal, 2(5), pp.157-160.
Bruce, T., Hakkarainen, P. and Bredikyte, M. eds., 2017. The Routledge international handbook of
early childhood play. Taylor & Francis.
Charles, M. and Bellinson, J. eds., 2019. The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education:
Psychoanalytic, Attachment, and Developmental Perspectives. Routledge.
Cohen, D., 2018. The development of play. Routledge.
Higdon, S., 2019. Taking Play Seriously: The Importance of Play and Urban Play Space Design
(Doctoral dissertation, Kalamazoo, Mich.: Kalamazoo College.).
Kelley, D.K., 2016. Play On: The Importance of Adult-Only Play Events at Children's Museums
(Doctoral dissertation).
Nijhof, S.L., and et.al., 2018. Healthy play, better coping: The importance of play for the
development of children in health and disease. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
Sosa, A.V., 2016. Association of the type of toy used during play with the quantity and quality of
parent-infant communication. JAMA pediatrics, 170(2), pp.132-137.
Tuber, S., 2019. PLAY IN THE EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE LIFE OF A PRESCHOOLER.
The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education: Psychoanalytic, Attachment, and
Developmental Perspectives, p.44.
Wilkinson, P.F., 2017. In celebration of play: an integrated approach to play and child development.
Routledge.