Wellbeing

As we approach the summer holidays, you might be unsure how to fill in the days. Consider encouraging your children to have play dates. Below is an article from Beyond Blue focusing on the importance and benefits of play.

Play helps children develop social skills

Play is important for learning the social skills (including language and communication) that develop over time and will be the foundation for future relationships. 

Through play, children learn about:

• the give and take of relationships with friends (negotiating)
• how their behaviour can affect others and to develop empathy
• how to lead and follow
• repairing relationships.

Play helps children develop emotional skills

Through play, children can express their feelings, even before they have the words to say how they feel. Play also fosters imagination and becomes the basis for creativity in art or music or other ways of self-expression. These ways of personal expression can help people cope with feelings all their lives.

Play can also help children learn impulse control. They learn to think about what they want to do, to plan and to be patient. If they’re building a castle and get frustrated and knock it down, they have lost their castle. In these ways, children gradually learn they need to control their impulses to achieve what they want. 

Play is a way that children can work through and resolve problems

For example, a child whose family has separated may feel very anxious about what’s going to happen to them. These feelings and possibilities can be explored through play. The child can practise having two homes set up with two houses and different dolls. There’s no need for you to take part but being near while the child plays shows support and acceptance.

Play helps children develop physical skills

Children like games that test their physical abilities (motor skills) – running, climbing, jumping and exploring. These games bring children happiness and build their confidence.