Parents are often worried that their children will spend too much time playing rather than studying. While parents think that this may hinder their child's intelligence, it's a very wrong misconception. Allowing your child to play for at least 20 minutes a day has proven to help them focus a lot more on their schoolwork while also enhancing their growth significantly.
Helps With Their Muscle Development
A lot of parents forget that playtime is usually when a kid uses their muscles the most, so cutting it out of their routine can negatively impact their muscle growth over the years. Allowing your kid to play outside helps them develop their muscles by moving around and doing different activities that require physical effort.
Advances Their Creativity Levels
There’s no limit to a kid’s imagination, so setting them free to create an activity that they deem as fun can be very beneficial for enhancing their creativity. While monitoring your child's safety is very important, giving them the freedom to explore and create is also a vital aspect of their growth.
Improves Their Mental Health
Staying either at home or at school all day can build up anxiety and frustration in a kid that just wants to have fun. Helping your kid release those pent up feelings by giving them the freedom to play can greatly improve their mental health, both in the short term and the long term. Kids will naturally feel closer and more loving towards parents that allow them to have the recreational time that they need.
Grows Their Social Skills
Playing becomes a very essential part of a kid’s childhood when they get to the ages where they’re ready to interact with other children. This gets very difficult if you don't have any outdoor playgrounds nearby where kids can interact freely. Finding a local park that has a playground or getting some commercial playground equipment to set up somewhere safe in your neighborhood can help make it easier for your kid to build their personality while interacting with other kids. Kids can also discover their leadership abilities or grow confidence in their physical abilities through these interactions.
Builds Their Preferences
Trial and error is the best method to let your kid figure out what activities they like or dislike. Giving them the time and the freedom to discover the things they like will slowly help them with figuring out their strengths, weaknesses, and passions. This can also be very helpful for parents as figuring out a child’s likes can make tasks like picking out gifts or planning a fun day out much easier.
Improves Focus Levels On Studies
Parents that cut out any time for recreational play in fear that their child won’t study aren’t aware of how playtime positively affects their child’s focus levels. Giving your child too much playtime can remove their desire to focus on studying, so staying away from either extreme is the best solution. Separating study time from playtime helps draw clear lines between both activities for your child. Giving them time to play as a reward can incentivize them to stay focused while they’re studying.
Allows Them To Sleep Easier
Any parent knows that if a child doesn’t exert their energy during the day, this energy will come out during the night. Giving your child the freedom to play during the day will tire them out so that they’re able to sleep well during the night. Kids who don’t exert enough energy throughout the day will either have trouble with falling asleep or getting good sleep quality as it's very common for them to wake up multiple times throughout the night.
At the end of the day, kids just want to have fun. So allowing them to do so in a safe setting can uncover several positive traits that may last a lifetime. Playing also creates very fond childhood memories that your kid will remember, so giving them that freedom to play can play a big role in how your kid will look back at their childhood.
