The games selected by children or young people helps them in improving their health development. For children to have good physical and mental health, also get to learn life skills, they require more unstructured play opportunities from the time they are born till their teenage levels.
In enhancing child development, play improves the cognitive, physical, social and also the emotional well-being of children or young generation amongst others. There are number of ways in which play improves the development of children, these are;
- Developing physical health- some of the physical plays such as running, skipping and also riding bicycle helps children to develop good physical fitness, such that a child will continue growing in a flexible approach. He or she will be able to make any change or move very first without any difficulty. Also, physical plays enable them to have stamina, co-ordination and also body balance.
- Developing social skills- while playing, children can be able to develop social skills when they are with others. Through listening, paying attention and also sharing play experiences, children can be able to explore their feelings, develop self-discipline, also learn how to express themselves in different scenarios and work out emotional aspects of life.
- Playful parenting- through various plays, parents can easily connect with their children and have fun with them. A parent can support and also take part in the play but he or she should not take control of the activities that should happen. A parent should always give their children time, freedom and choice to make their own decision about how the play should be.
- Play and challenge- children usually want to create challenges and uncertainty in their plays. This helps children to test themselves and later find out their own limits and also boundaries. With challenges in their plays, children are able to deal with risks through the play and can also implement the same skills later in life. On the other hand, parents should encourage them since the time of birth to extend themselves so that they can be able to get diversified in all the required life skills. Parents should teach their children activities such as riding bicycle, swimming and also maintaining the road safety.
Therefore, play is a key tool to development of young people since, besides contributing to cognitive, physical, social and well-being of children, it also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to have to enough time to fully engage with their children. By working out on some factors such increasing children plays by giving them enough freedom, taking the lifestyle in a standard pace, avoiding frequent changes to family structure and making life to be a free child-centered, the development young generations will better than the way it is when they get restricted to one type of an activity for example, activities that involves academics alone.