Play Is the Growing Child's Workshop: 4 Ways Your Children Benefit from Recreation

Most of parents have a corner in the back of their minds that envies children when they see them reveling the simple freedom of play—a good envy, but an envy nonetheless. We think of when we were kids, when our lives were so carefree and untaxed by responsibility, and our hearts swell, wishing they could enjoy their laughter their entire lives. Well, not only is play a wonderful luxury of childhood, it's also an essential activity for growing into a healthy human.

Play is a young child's natural means of development—here are 4 ways they benefit from recreation.

1. Intellectual Development

Play offers time for intellectual development. Even when just running around with their little toddler friends, children are taking in the world around them through their different senses and their mind is learning to respond at a faster pace. Games can also be emphasized that purposely target different levels of cognition, improving memory, problem solving, and creativity.

2. Language Improvement

Another way children benefit from play is language development. Have you ever noticed the rapidity at which ideas come to an excited child and how they talk faster? This forces them to find ways to communicate faster, and as they talk with you or their playmates, they are improving their linguistic capacities.

Encourage this by introducing alphabet games, developing word games, and simply talking to your child a lot when you play together.

3. Social Development

Recreational time is a time for learning how to socialize and interact with the people around them—usually their peers. It doesn't take long for a new parent to find themselves marveling at the complexity of dynamics in a preschool playroom as children go through their miniaturized versions of adult dramas, tear-filled tantrums and all. This is their time to develop their emotions and the way they deal with adversity as well as cooperation. If you watch children at play, you see them struggle with leadership roles and the challenge of encountering a personality they don't agree with. You seem them struggle with the idea of sharing and how to find common goals. How to meet new people, how to bond, and how to recover when they've done something hurtful.

4. Motor Skills

Active play is a time to develop motor skills. Running around, climbing on playground equipment, and playing games that take hand coordination develops their bodies and minds at once. Their limbs and joints strengthen, they improve their balance, and their lungs typically get a healthy workout. Kids need about 60 minutes or more of activity per day.

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One way you can encourage more time spent playing in your home is by investing in some activity equipment for the yard. This can be as simple as a small (toddler level) basketball hoop and a nerf ball, some swing sets, or a full functional kid's play set. Click the link now and go to http://www.treefrogswingsets.com to find out more.