Friday, August 8, 2008

The Importance of Play

How much time do you set aside each day for play? No matter what your age - or the age of your children - play is vital to your health and longevity. With technology and medical research helping people to live longer than ever before, staying young at heart is just as important as staying physically fit.

Six types of play are outlined in the PsyBlog article that I recently discovered:
  1. Unoccupied Play
  2. Solitary Play
  3. Onlooker Play
  4. Parallel Play
  5. Associate Play
  6. Cooperative Play

"Through play children learn and practice many basic social skills. They develop a sense of self, learn to interact with other children, how to make friends, how to lie and how to role-play."
According to Mildred Parten, from the Institute of Child Development in Minnesota, "L
earning to play is learning how to relate to others."

Read more on play and how children learn to work together.

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