Child Development
Initiative
The importance of Play
(and what your child's play says about their development)
Play is central to every aspect of a child's development. It encompasses a versatile process- one that reflects and supports the growth of the whole child. It is the primary way in which a child embodies all aspects of their development simultaneously. Play exercises cognitive, social-emotional, language, gross physical, fine physical, and sensory systems as a working ensemble. Children learn best about themselves and their world through play. Observation of play is critical for further understanding relationships between those domains of development, emerging together as part of a unified developmental experience. Play is exceptionally meaningful when it is internally motivated.
Through play, children are able to explore and express aspects of their lived experience, integrating and engaging with aspects of their own unique developmental journey as it unfolds over time. Cognitive growth is supported through problem solving, symbolic thinking, and meaning-making. Social-emotional development is engaged through relationship building, negotiation, shared attention, and facets of both challenge and joy within interaction. Language develops as children communicate purpose, narrate action, and respond to others in meaningful contexts that matter to them. Your child's play can reveal a lot about their developmental process, and is more central to aligning with their experience than observing or examining behaviors in isolation.
A safe and encouraging play space allows for the navigation of shifting internal and external circumstances throughout the life-course, and for the processing of trauma, uncertainty, and typical developmental anxieties through action, imagination, and repetition. Gross motor development is reflected and supported during play through movement, balance, and coordination, while fine motor skills are refined through manipulation, construction, and detailed exploration of materials. Sensory systems are continuously engaged as children integrate information from their environment in real time. Importantly, play does not end in childhood, but rather takes on new forms well into adolescence and adulthood (i.e. social banter, visual and musical arts etc.). An early positive orientation to play serves as an essential protective factor for predicting mental health outcomes later in life, particularly because it increases the opportunity for novel back and forth exchanges between the child and their world, and the child and others.