Quite often you get to clap your eyes on kids in the playground, at school or outdoors. Some are seen running around. Some other kids prefer playing in groups. Some, if not too many are seen enjoying their playtime in their elbow room. Most parents prefer their kids to spend time on academics. But little do many of them know that playtime for kids is critical in developing life-long skills and plays a major role in modeling well-rounded children.

According to a survey conducted by Wakefield Research for IPEMA (International Play Equipment Manufacturers Association), it was observed that playtime improved a multitude of skills in kids. Playtime helped in enhancing social, physical, cognitive, emotional, communicative, as well as creative skills. Let us walk through the benefits of playtime for kids.

A Key Teaching Tool

Playtime is not just “all fun and only play”. It involves 6 key benefits in a child’s overall development. Playtime enhances their gross-motor as well as fine-motor skills. The former is related to the improvement of larger movements like walking and crawling and the latter involves smaller movements such as holding onto objects, picking up objects, and so on.

Playtime can be as simple as building a sandcastle, playing hopscotch or even a freeze dance. All these set the kid to engage in cooperative play thus developing the kid’s social and communication skills with his/ her peers.

We all know that a child’s brain develops at a fast pace from the period of his/ her birth to the age of 3. Cognitive skills are developed and built during this age. It is thus crucial to stimulate brain development that will help them develop their cognitive skills.

Playtime gives kids the freedom to explore new worlds altogether. Be it a make-believe game, or a pretend-play game, it helps the kids think out-of-the-box and in developing creative skills.

An Active Lifestyle

When your kid is physically active at playtime, they use up their natural energy stores. This enhances the eating and sleeping habits of the child as well. There are numerous researches on health and lifestyle that try inculcating good habits to stay fit and healthy. Most of these studies boil down to the fact that an active lifestyle is inevitable to stay fit and healthy. Same appears to kids!

The Secret Power Of Playtime

Squeezing in a little time for play will be the most memorable aspect of childhood for kids as well as for the parents. An inactive kid leads a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, kids must be given ample playtime. This is not only important for the kids’ physical development but also hone their communication, coordination, and balance.

In a nutshell, playtime is inevitable for kids. For all the parents who are caught by the parenting bug and need advice on how playtime can make an impact in your kid’s overall development, ask yourself questions as to how productive you are at work (office or household) when you take a break doing things you adore and how it preps you up for the next set of chores. This is exactly the secret power of playtime in kids!