Episode-41-Playing in Children, Why Children Love to Play

Playing is very essential to children, essential for their physical and emotional wellbeing.

In their book, Touchpoint, Drs Brazelton, and Sparrow said that Plays remains the child’s powerful way of learning. In playing, children test out situations and actions to find out about engagements.

Playing in children starts very early, probably as early, as 6 weeks, and 8 weeks of age, when their social and emotional apparatus are in full gear and engaged. Children of all ages look forward to playtime. Adults do the same as well.

Capacity, and the need to play continues to increase and becomes more complex as the infant gets older. By the time infants are 4 months and can see better, and hold objects more firmly, they have more tools to play with.  

By 6 months of age, some infants can sit on their own unsupported, and with their hands free, they could hold and manipulate objects more easily. They will begin to collide two objects to see what the effect would be, including tossing them for the fun of doing so.  

Most infants are crawling at age 9 months, which increases their reach for objects and toys to play with, and well as initiate plays by reaching out to people around them. It is at this age that children realize that objects hidden did not disappear, and they begin to anticipate when they would reappear, thus they enjoy games such as peekaboo, and hide and seek. Caregivers and infants go back and forth playing these kinds of games until the infant is ready for a nap or a bottle or loses interest.

With more development in motor milestones, such as standing, walking and running, comes new outreach, contact and new objects to play with.

Children could be very creative once they have objects to play with and people to play with.  Playing therefore continues to evolve and increase in complexities as children grow.

Something dramatic happens at age 18 months. In addition to full movement and ability to get around and manipulate toys, children at 18 months have up to fifty words with which to communicate with both peers and adults.  resemble what goes on in adult life, and in fact prepares them for their future roles as adults.