Play and mental development

What is play for children? play is any sort of ‘fun’ activity that a child does alone or with a group of other children. It is also one that a child practices naturally and surprisingly is a very important part of a child’s development especially his mental one. The topic of the relationship between play and mental development and whether it is good or not has become very hotly debated amongst parents. Regardless of the debates though, the fact that play is directly related to mental development and actually affects it positively still stands.

To begin with, playing creates an appropriate environment for building basic mental skills. Firstly, it defines and illustrates basic logical principles. For example, if a child treats other children nicely, he is gonna be treated nicely by the others and vice versa illustrating basic social logic, or if a child drops a ball, the ball falls down illustrating how gravity works. This might seem obvious for us, the adults, but it is not so obvious for young naive children. Secondly, playing introduces basic mathematical concepts like addition and subtraction. It does so in a game like when children act like merchants, they have to learn how to count the money they have and how to do transactions with that money. Thirdly, it increases children’s ability to control themselves. According to one research children who practiced imitation play regularly were found to possess a higher degree of self-control.

In addition to the fact that play creates those fundamental mental skills, it also further improves and refines them. One example of that is how play forces the child’s brain to function during playing sessions, this strengthens the brain connections and causes parts of the brain to grow. Moreover, playing acts as a sort of playground where a child tries and practices all the things he learned during the day, this strengthens the child’s memory and gives an indication to the child for whether the thing the child learned is applicable in the real world. For instance, if the child saw a dangerous stunt on a cartoon somewhere, playing will safely prove to the child that the stunt is dangerous in real life. Furthermore, it gives rise to a personality for the child, because playing is a medium where kids can be exposed to various situations and so, they have the ability to choose what to do which ultimately contributes to their personality.

Just like how it is with all topics, skeptics and critics exist, and they claim that play can cause a child to develop an illogical way of thinking. This is incorrect however, play is the only place for a child to develop logical thinking because during play a child is actively experimenting and therefore is interested in the results of his actions. Others would say, that playing is a waste of time. This is also not true, in fact without enough time for a child to play, growing up normally would be very challenging and frustrating because the child would miss a chance to develop the basic mental skills as previously discussed.

In conclusion, I think every parent should be happy to see their children spend their time playing, and should even encourage and ensure that this behavior takes place often enough. To restate my own words, playing is an activity the builds the foundations of the child’s mind and motivates its growth.