The Power of Play

Which would you prefer: your son or daughter quietly watching television or playing hop-scotch with a neighbor friend on the sidewalk? Hop-scotch can be noisy and disruptive, but consider the advantages: Your child is exercising, learning a skill, having a good time socializing. TV and computer games may have their place, but in many families they are robbing children of healthy play. Play is the "work" of children. Healthy play develops skills. Blocks are usually the first choice of child development specialists for early childhood.

Most parents have high ambitions for their children. So they ask, "When do we start the flash cards?" Allow your children to grow up normally. The best training tools are games such as logo blocks, tinker toys, erector sets, etc. Raymond Moore, a child development specialist says, "Take time to play daily with your youngsters, but realize that it is seldom possible to sit down and have a confidential chat at playtime. While you work together, however, there is time for close conversation and building of mutual confidence. The generation gap is bridged more often over the kitchen sink than on the baseball diamond." Better Late than Early, p. 179.

Burton White from Harvard University lists four goals for early childhood: "Language development, the development of curiosity, social development, and nurturing the roots of intelligence." The First Three Years of Life, p. 110. He goes on to say: "Over and above language's fundamental role in the development of intelligence, it plays an extremely important part in the development of social skills. So much of what transpires between any two people involves either listening to or expressing language. And so, in a very significant way, good language development underlies good social development." Ibid, p. 111.

Time on the floor having fun with your young child pays big dividends. Burton White says that exciting interaction with adults stimulates cognitive development. The floor is a child's turf. Join him there often.

We are surrounded by entrepreneurs trying to sell us "smart toys." In the article "The power of simple play," Katie Kelly quotes Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek: "The toys have flashy gizmos and make cool sounds but do not offer a real advantage," says Golinkoff. And Hirsh-Pasek adds, "We know a tremendous amount about how children learn, based on 30 years of wonderful science. The research shows that real learning has to take place in context--and that play is the best teacher. Children learn a tremendous amount through everyday living: playing with other children, creating stories together, finding patterns in leaves, and figuring out that if there are four people coming for dinner, you need to set four plates, four forks, and four napkins. Young children can learn about physics with blocks. What they don't need to do is to go around reciting E=mc²." US News & World Report, Dec. 8, 2003.

It is not a good idea to put a child down in front of a computer and then disappear. "The more interactive the technologies are, the better," says Mark Ginsburg, Executive director of the National Association for Young Children. We need to beware of replacing a child-parent relationship with fancy learning toys. Play is the preferred teacher.

"A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that on a typical day, 26 percent of 2- to 7-year-olds spent time on the computer, averaging 40 minutes." Katy Kelly, US News & World Report, Sept 25, 2000. Many parents have come to believe that computers can greatly enhance intellectual development. Rightly used at the right age, computers can be a blessing. But more important, children need to play with other children. On the floor, building houses and forts with blocks.

Learning Activities:

1. Magnets. Show how magnets can attract paper clips. Discuss with the child the power of magnetism.

2. Water Play. Blowing bubbles is lots of fun. Let the children experiment with water painting.

3. A Touch-and-Feel Bag. In a large paper sack, put various items that children can identify by feeling: a tooth brush, pencil, paper clip, sand paper, etc. Ask the children to close their eyes, reach in the sack, and identify the items by feel. Talk about how God created our fingers to learn by touch and feel.

4. Planting Indoor and Outdoor Plants. For instance, you could place a sweet potato with the pointed end facing down in a clear plastic container. Use toothpicks to keep about one-third of the potato above the water facing the right direction. In about ten days the potato will begin to send out roots.

5. Light and Sound. A prism can help you teach about light and color --a kaleidoscope, a bell, a whistle.

6. Taste and Smell. Teach children to identify things such as peppermint, cloves, lemon, perfume.

"Teach your children to be useful, to bear burdens according to their years; then the habit of laboring will become second nature to them, and useful work will never seem like drudgery. . . . Next to the Bible, nature is to be our great lesson book.

"The book of nature, which spread its living lessons before them, afforded an exhaustless source of instruction and delight. On every leaf of the forest and stone of the mountains, in every shining star, in earth and sea and sky, God's name was written." Child Guidance, pp. 122, 45.