THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Have you ever asked yourselves how our parents managed to contribute to the development of our potential without studying scholarly literature or being guided by expert advice as intensively as we do today with respect to the education of our children? Maybe the key to their success was the famous expression: “Go outside to play!“

Playing is a free, spontaneous and the most important activity in every child’s growing up process. It is the objective in itself and the main reason for initiating it is the pleasure children get by playing. Children explore, develop their imagination and build relations by playing. While playing, they process and go through with whatever bothers them or makes them happy or sad. Thus we can learn much about their emotional and intellectual development only by observing their behaviour during the play.

There are various types of play and various ways in which children play. They usually depend on the age of children, as well as on their intellectual, emotional, social and motor capacities. As for the preschool children, some of the basic types of play include the following:

• Independent play – in which a child plays alone and does not need other children to develop the play. Although many parents wonder whether it is proper, independent play enables a child to concentrate and come up with creative ideas, which is a very important factor of children’s development.
• Parallel play implies a play in which children play together but they do not create a common play but rather develop parallel activities. If you observe children in parallel play you will notice that there is no formal interaction but rather the children play with the same toys and perform similar activities.  It is a very common form of play among the children aged 2-3 years. Parallel game is very important because it teaches children how to behave well towards their peers and it enables them to imitate manners and develop skills of other children they notice.
• Asocial play occurs at the ages between 4 and 5 years and it refers to playing in a group without clearly defined roles or common goals. In such a play children often changes their roles and relations so there is no clear division into a leader child and her/his followers, but rather those roles are interchangeable.
• Cooperative play is an organised form of playing. A child plays as a part of a larger group which has a collective goal, e.g. creating a common building with blocks. In cooperative play, the roles of a leader and followers are usually clearly observable. In comparison with the abovementioned types of play, it contributes more to building peer relationships and taking positions in a group.

How can parents contribute to the enrichment of children’s experience? Through play, indeed! Allow your children to explore, experiment, be introduced to different materials, textures and shapes. The best way is to enable a child to spend much time outdoors! Furthermore, allow your children to take the initiative in playing, to create it themselves and develop it in the way they want. Although parents with the best intentions try to provide their children with the most beautiful and high quality toys, they are actually not crucial for the children’s development. Children can equally well, or even better play with natural materials and objects that basically are not intended for play (dishes, leaves, sand, water…) Don’t be afraid of children’s boredom! Boredom is an ideal field for creativity! When we run around in order to buy a toy we try hard not to let our child be bored in any moments of a day, but in such a way, we miss the opportunity to encourage children’s imagination, to light up their curiosity and let them be children in every sense of the word.