Boosting Your Child’s Learning through Play
- Written by Diana Smith
Being a parent is probably the highest responsibility one has in a lifetime. Once it happens, it becomes ongoing and keeps posing new challenges to us. Of course, it may seem easy from some perspective as almost everyone does it, but make no mistake – being a good parent is an extremely demanding and challenging role requiring a lot of time and effort. Raising a child has so many levels that it’s almost impossible to structure all the tasks a parent has when it comes to carrying out a proper upbringing. One of the numerous tasks of parenthood is teaching your child. A parent teaches their children throughout their whole life in various ways. One of them is through play, especially at a young age. Studies show that children should develop their problem-solving skills at an age even younger than three. In that respect, let’s see how one can introduce learning in a fun and non-forcible way.
How do babies learn?
It’s fascinating how one tabula rasa learns so many different things about the world in such a short period of time. It’s difficult to comprehend the way babies learn anything, but it makes sense that they should rely on their own senses as it’s their only means of perception. This is why parents should strive to intensify their children’s curiosity as soon as they’re born. This is done through colorful room displays, as well as introducing various sounds. This is the reason why nurseries are so packed with colors and items. As far as interactions are concerned, babies also develop body awareness and balance mostly through crawling and rolling on the floor with help from their parents. They play a key role in the process as a parent is a safety net to every baby and a medium between the baby and the rest of the world. Your baby needs you to be the connection and the one that teaches and encourages them.
How to make playtime smart?
Children should spend a lot of time playing, but it should be organized and carefully selected. It’s not just about playing, it’s actually about the benefits of the games in the sense of acquiring new skills and further developing existing ones. This is why parents tend to start with building some sorts of bricks and solving simple puzzles. These games enable your kids to develop their spatial intelligence, as well as pattern recognition. It’s important for young children to become aware of the world around them. All the toys in kindergartens have a learning purpose. Nevertheless, a parent should add to this at home. Moreover, they need to build a foundation so that they familiarize the child with this type of learning and teach the child to love it. This is why it’s important to introduce various educational toys into your children’s lives as early as possible and make them a part of a daily routine.
Technology vs. tradition?
It’s a real struggle determining whether the booming development of technology has truly been good for mankind or we failed to understand its true purpose resulting in wasting time doing useless things online. Naturally, the truth is always somewhere in between and everything should be done in moderation. You need to introduce technology into your child’s life. However, try to balance it all out. Don’t let playing outside lose to playing online video games. Teach your kids about computers, tablets, smartwatches and all sorts of gadgets, but monitor their behavior and control what they do online. The best way for your kids to make progress is to have balance. Don’t neglect reading as it’s a very special and important element of education and developing imagination and creativity. Kids should still read fairy tales and fables, but it won’t hurt if you introduce video games, as long as they also have some educational value.
All in all, it seems that raising children is becoming a more complicated quest in time. A wider range of possibilities also brings a higher probability of failure and wrong choices. However, if you dedicate yourself to raising your kids and do your best to direct them onto the right path, you’ll do just fine. Give your kids all the love and care in the world, but make sure to stand by the tough choices for their own good and everything will be great.
