Week Ten Overview
This week we will discuss the importance of play to children's learning. Adults tend to forget how children learn best. Children learn best when they are allowed to play.
Listen to a baby who babbles- they play with sounds and experiment with what they can do with their voices. By chance they utter the syllables mama and mom gets excited and there is a lot of attention. He does it again and she gets excited again. Finally he notices that when he says mama, the most important person in the world (to an infant mom brings food and all things good) comes.
No matter where in the world children are, they play. Play has become scarce for children in the United States. Children increasingly are kept inside for safety. They are glued to screens for far more time per day than is good for them. Children do not have freedom to play alone or with other children. There are very valuable lessons to be learned by playing with children who are both younger and older. Children learn how to negotiate and how to fight and make up, when adults stay out of it! I can remember as a child getting into an argument with my friend and whining to my mom about it. She told me to either find a new friend or work it out. She never got involved in our squabbles. We also were outside for long periods of time without adult supervision. Yes, we got hurt, stitches and bruises and a few broken bones were normal parts of childhood. I am actually heartened to see a movement back to letting children play alone outside. Free Range Kids has moved and is now Blogging under LetGrow.org Links to an external site.. Most of the reasons we are limiting children's outside time is out of misguided and misinformed fears. Read the "really" page on Let Grow Blog.
Check out the Alliance for Childhood Links to an external site. for ways you can advocate for children to be able to play! Children are young for only a short time. They have an entire adult life to work and be serious. Let them be silly, let them play.
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com