Why Kids Need Unstructured Play Time
With schools cutting back on recess time, and with so many kids relying on a screen to entertain them, physical play time seems like a thing of the past. How often do your kids have unstructured play time where they are able to use their imagination and dream up a pretend play situations, come up with a game and make up their own rules to it, or even just act out conversations and situations between their dolls? This kind of play time is critical to a child’s development and needs to be made more of a priority amongst schools as well as parents.
KaBoom!, a national non-profit that is dedicated to ensuring kids have a childhood filled with the balance and active play needed to thrive, said it best “Free play gives children an outlet to express their emotions and feelings and helps them develop a sense of who they are.” Imagine never having played a game of pretend, where you can explore being anyone and anything you want to be! Many kids pretend to be doctors, astronauts, moms and dads, even animals. This helps them to develop their maturity as they pretend to be adults, and also helps them work together to “raise their baby” or to “heal a sick patient”. One study found that students who engaged in free play developed stronger levels of executive functioning, or the ability to manage oneself to achieve goals. THIS is what you want to be seeing in your 5,6,7,etc year old kids! Free play not only keeps them active and let’s them blow off steam, but it helps them mature and become more responsible for themselves and what they do.
Another way to look at the benefit of free play is how it effects how they would react in a more dangerous situation, without a parent there to help. One study showed that free play stimulates the fight-or-flight response without triggering cortisol (the stress hormone), so that children can practice handling danger in every day situations. Don’t like the sound of letting your child take risks on their own? Well, as Roald Dahl said, “The more risks you allow your child to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves.” Keep an eye on your child, but allow them to take risks so that they may learn how to handle such situations in the future.
Free play is also so beneficial to children than suffer from ADHD. Research has shown that time spent in nature can help reduce ADHD symptoms in children as part of their overall treatment plan. It is a great way for them to burn off their excess energy, which can in turn help them concentrate later on in the day when they don’t have so much energy pushing them to get distracted. Edward Fisher, a psychologist, has found that pretend play “results in improved performances in both cognitive-linguistic and social affective domains.”
Do you believe that your children get enough instructed free play time? If you need more examples of the benefits it has on a child’s development, you may find this article interesting.
