Features and Role of Play in Young Children’s Life

Question: Discuss the features and role of play in young childrens life. Answer: Introduction Play in simple terms involves all the activities that develop the feeling of enjoyment, pleasure, entertainment or fun. Children like to play and it is often considered as work of children. Playing is the universal and early language of childhood, all the senses of children understands the language of play (Corsini, 2010). This study is a clear understanding of the basic features and importance of play in young childrens life. Features of play According to studies of Cheng and Johnson (2010), there are 12 best features of play that are identified by Tina Bruce. These features explain the value of play as well as promote quality play. Play involves the use of the first-hand experience that children usually perform at home or school. These first-hand experiences are daily activities like phones, kitchen etc. that are done by children are utilized in play. Further, play helps to determine once own role in play. Through social play, children learn social rules, moral reasoning, sharing, reciprocity and cooperation. With determining once own role while playing activity, children gain a sense of control and develop decision-making process Children learn to construct new things when they play that is named as constructive play, for example- making props, drawings, block play etc. that helps young children to develop the technical skills. Children also get an advantage of choices offered in play. The power to choose from different options of play helps children to develop confidence and enter to play mode. Play involves practising for the past, present and future where different types of play provide different opportunities to gain practice for reviewing the past, present and future situation (Broadhead et al. 2010). The play also persist feature to let children learn the unique quality of pretending through play. Children develop skills to pretend play that further helps them to distinguish between the real and fake world. For young children there is a certain play that involves alone act like acting, singing, dancing etc. helps to improve confidence, creativity and imagination (Corsini, 2010). In contrast, Howard (2010) stated that play like cricket, football etc. are cooperative play that helps to understand the importance of team spirit, friendship and co-operation While playing children learn to develop the skills of personal play agenda or plan. This helps them to realize the importance of personal agenda in life and work as an onlooker. The play also offers deep involvement process that concentration, seriousness and playfulness of young children. The play is the fastest trendsetter in the life of young children that keeps them up-to-date. For example- the most recent game available in the market helps children to learn the most recent skill. The playing is complete machinery that works on personal, social, emotional and physical issues of young children (Sheridan et al. 2010). Role of play in childrens well-being Playing or act of the play is a critical process that involves moving, learning, contributing, driving, reacting, creating and many more scenarios that are essential for overall development of young children (Corsini, 2010). As per biological evidence in young age, the body cells are under a high active mode of growth and development. Playing works as food for these cells by providing energy utilization process leading to enhanced growth. Therefore, playing is important of best brain and body growth of developing children (Howard, 2010). The play provided a critical involvement in the behavioural development of the child. It is commonly known that playing switch-on the three most important behavioural modes that are freely chosen, fundamentally motivated and personally directed. Through play the children get opportunities to develop creativity, freedom of spirit, learning, reacting and practicing processes. Playing also helps in the development of cognitive behavioural elements like learning, understanding, reacting and spirituality (Broadhead et al. 2010). The emotional maturity, communication senses, emotional expression as well as control over emotional expression are the developmental characteristics enhanced by activities of play. The young children develop verbal and non-verbal communication skills through playing. They also learn to express emotional like winning a game motivates the expression of happiness and losing a game unknowingly develops sorrow (Howard, 2010). It is been experimentally proven that childrens are usually over expressive while playing as compared with normal life circumstances. The act of play along with expression also helps to manage emotions, for example- children are instructed for not hitting anyone when they are angry while playing make them learn how to control the emotion of anger (Milteer et al. 2012). Playing involves a very important role in social competency development of young children. Through play, children get connected with outside world, people, animals and plants. These connections help to build relationships leading to overall social competency development. Playing works as an initial step to establish the social connections in the early age of life making individual a social element. Play provides a huge platform for establishing social connections and relationships to infant minds (Broadhead et al. 2010). Conclusion Some adults do not consider play as an important element of childrens life. However, the study provides a clear demonstration of the role of play in the overall development of the infant. Maths and Science can never achieve the developments, learnings and skills acquired by playing in childrens life. From the above study, it is clear that playing is the most important element for the overall development of young children. References Books Broadhead, P., Howard, J. and Wood, E. (2010).Play and learning in the early years: From research to practice. Sage. Corsini, R. J. (2010).Role playing in psychotherapy. Transaction Publishers. Sheridan, M., Howard, J. and Alderson, D., (2010).Play in early childhood: From birth to six years. Routledge. Journals Cheng, M.F. and Johnson, J.E., (2010). Research on childrens play: Analysis of developmental and early education journals from 2005 to 2007.Early Childhood Education Journal,37(4), pp.249-259. Howard, J., (2010). Making the most of play in the early years: The importance of childrens perceptions.Play and Learning in the Early Years, edited by Pat Broadhead, Justine Howard, and Elizabeth Wood, pp.145-60. Milteer, R.M., Ginsburg, K.R., Mulligan, D.A., Ameenuddin, N., Brown, A., Christakis, D.A., Cross, C., Falik, H.L., Hill, D.L., Hogan, M.J. and Levine, A.E., (2012). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bond: Focus on children in poverty.Pediatrics,129(1), pp.e204-e213.