CHAPTER
ONE
Importance of Play and Toys
Children love toys. From the colorful mobile overhead that attracts a baby’s attention, to the tower of LEGOs built by your little architect; well-designed toys stimulate your child’s mind, enhance creativity, and encourage activity.
Young ones absorb messages from toys through all stages of their growth. The kinds of toys selected and how your youngster plays with them will influence how well she meets her optimal learning potential. Choosing the right toys for her play is not easy. It can be a real challenge to find the right product, at the right time, for the right price.
And once you’ve done the above, there’s the added challenge of getting the maximum value from a toy.
We’ve all heard about IQ (Intelligence Quotient). It is a classic predictor of your child’s mental ability. I believe that your child’s PQ, his Play Quotient, is an equally vital factor, which affects how well your young one will attain the best of his physical, creative, and intellectual potentials.
Play is your child’s work. Through play children practice the basic skills needed in the classroom—and in life. Guided play in the right environment will help your child gain the tools she needs to sharpen her thinking, and heighten her sensitivity.
To assist your child in succeeding with skill building, we will look at the different ways your child uses toys, and you’ll become informed about finding the right toys, and skilled at helping your child expand his or her PQ.
How Toys Work
Research conducted by child-development specialists, psychologists, educators and others point out that the first five years in the life of the child are of the greatest consequence.
Many studies confirm the essential aspects of early mental, social and neurological development. Genetic factors are linked to learning and memory. Researchers have found that children who do not play and are rarely touched have brains that are 20 to 30 percent smaller than normal for their age. Researchers have found that toys and play stimulate more brain synapses per neuron.
These early years are intensely formative and are the period when children gain knowledge about themselves and about others, gain awareness of their environment, develop basic motor skills, discover many of their unique abilities, and gain self image and security that lasts a lifetime.
Like little sponges, children begin observing and absorbing from infancy. They learn by using all of their senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Through observation, mimicry, and experimentation, children learn about the world around them and begin to gain mastery of essential skills.
When a parent is involved with a baby—smiling at her, creating silly and different sounds, making the baby laugh—the parent becomes the baby’s first “Big Toy.” Fathers who enjoy close contact with their infants soon are distinguished from the mother by the different ways they play. The baby quickly learns to respond to different persons’ sounds and touches. Through such interchanges, the infant becomes conscious of individual people. Also, she becomes more aware of the environment around her.
The secondary motor stage of child development occurs during these first five years. It is the time when the most rapid physical, emotional, and mental growth takes place. And at each stage of this development, a child needs different kinds of stimulation, enhanced by different kinds of toys and different play strategies.
IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
Play Principles
Play is a natural phenomenon. Before you examine the toys to be used by your young one, it helps if you understand the principles of play. Of particular importance is understanding that play enriches both sides of the brain—right and left hemispheres. Thus, the underlying principle of play, smart play, is that the child will gather essential experiences necessary for her fullest cognitive, emotional, and physical development.
As infants grow they play with innumerable things around them: their hands, their toes, sunbeams coming in through the window. At the same time they discover sounds; they babble and talk to themselves. They become conscious of the separate parts of their bodies; they make distinctions in color, light, and sound.
How children interact with people and elements in their environment is revealing. We should stand back and observe them. As we watch them play, we come to know their play process, the ways they get frustrated, their tolerance levels, their curiosity and creative responses.
We want to be sure our children play with others of different ages and abilities so our own child can experience a full range of social interaction: patience, empathy, compassion, support, and honesty. The way he plays affects how he feels about himself.
A child plays alone, with other children, and with adults, and each style teaches him something different. Children help each other achieve increased degrees of sophistication. For example, children learn from other children by talking with and watching one another, by trying new scenarios, and exchanging information, even fantasies.
In the earliest stages, little ones play merely in proximity to others without being involved with them. They play alone and find satisfying activities for themselves. As they grow, they learn to share toys, give them away, and they fight over them.
When children enter nursery schools, childcare programs, parent cooperatives, or have visits away from home, they are introduced to new children, different toys and playthings, and other styles of playing. As they discover how to handle these situations, children strengthen their confidence, gain new experiences, expand responses and develop maturity.
Power of Play
Because of the power of play, you must understand your child’s need to explore, to meet and play with other children, and you must try not to interfere with your little one’s activity. Instead, serve as your child’s “Play Guide”—observe, enhance, and extend her experiences.
When playtime is ending, for example, it is important to give the child enough advance notice so she can have time to bring the activity to a satisfying close. If we respect our children’s playtime, the child is almost always more cooperative when they must change gears to eat, nap, or go elsewhere.
In play, children gain mastery over themselves and learn their own power in relationships with others. They grasp social values such as biases and responsibilities. They communicate better. They absorb concepts like making judgments. Each child expresses a unique style of play, and the ways he plays when he is young reflect how he will deal with others during later life.
Allow your child to select his own form of play, as his choices are important for his individual growth. Rigid rules can be a damper to natural self-expression. As parent and “Play Guide” honor your offspring’s early learning style and space. Included are also considering and providing appropriate skill-building toys.
Advantages of Play
Play experiences help the child to:
