Emerging Technologies Magazine

Uninterrupted and unstructured playtime helps children in many ways. During play, children learn about their surroundings, focus on specific tasks and develop their motor skills, visual tracking and hand-eye coordination.

Cooperative play helps children listen, work with others and learn to negotiate. They learn to think creatively, solve problems and make decisions. Indeed, the social skills they learn at this stage can help them throughout life.

Children does not need expensive playthings. Just provide them safe play spaces where they can interact freely with materials. Childern can find creative ways to work with common things like spoons, blankets, boxes and bowls.

Children who are allowed adequate playtime tend to develop into adults who are more knowledgeable about the world and are flexible in their thinking. Children who are not allowed to play tend to become uncooperative and mistrustful, which can cause problems in social dealings. Play is far from “childish”; it is an essential element of growing up into a healthy adult.

The overall result is that adquate playtime helps children to build stronger brains that will help them throughout their lives. See the Center for Urban Child Policy blog post.