Play And Childrens Development - Research Paper Example

Play And Children’s Development The play has great psychological impacts on individuals, and especially children. The play is important for healthy growth and development of children’s psychological, spiritual, social, and physical spheres. The play is thus a critical activity in any child’s or adult’s life. Exercises in both adults and children have been proved to reduce cases of psychological problems such as depressions, and anxiety, resulting in increased psychological benefits such as improving one’s moods after about 10 minutes of vigorous activities (Russel and Newton, 294). Paly can, therefore, be used as a versatile tool to self-regulate moods with better outcomes compared to any other mood enhancing methods. Research has shown that children who are more involved in pretend play have a greater cognitive development compared to those who do not. In most cases, such children perform much better in their studies (Kantor, 260). Therefore, encouraging more psychological exercises and play among children and adults would enhance better cognitive development and reduce psychological problems among such individuals. Kantor (258) explains the ideas behind a child’s tendency to see the entire world from his/her own point of view, and accommodation of such views to contribute immensely to the child’s abilities to learn through the development of thoughts. According to Kantor, the ability of the child to build and learn from perspectives when playing contributes to her development of intelligence. As Kantor observes, the play is critical in energizing a child as an antidote to work. Foley (6) argues that child’s play is critical in the development of child’s health and their quality of life. Children are encouraged to play. Children’s play develops from egocentric play to social play, from imitate to imaginative play alone, and imaginative play with others, and then to games with rules (Kantor, 259). Therefore, child’s play is critical in integrating them into the social sphere by encouraging more interaction with peers as well as imparting confidence in children to be involved in more creative activities. Burgess, Stermer, and Burgess (376) argue that the popularity of video games has grown tremendously in the last 20 years to rival film as entertainment media for leisure. In a study that measured the rate of video game playing by students compared to their academic performance, video gaming or passive gaming was found to have negative effects on the cognitive ability of students. The study reported decreasing interest in academic work due to its strong addictive nature that ties the students’ mind to such video gaming. According to this study, teachers and policy makers in education have constantly voiced their concerns regarding the detrimental effects of video passive gaming and TV watching. The study found that video gaming was negatively correlated to academic performance among college students, with the variation being much higher in male students compared to females. This may be explained by the time displacement hypothesis where media consumption takes away most of the time that would be used in the intellectually challenging academic activities. Shelving such intellectual challenging activities thus leads to lower cognitive development among such constant passive game players, resulting to lowered cognitive development. Thus as Kantor (259) asserts, the physical or active play would lead to improvement in cognitive development due to the mental activities and body systems involved, all which work to improve healthy development of an individual. Russel and Newton (295) relate passive gaming to the acute increase in obesity cases among teenagers today. According to this study, child obesity increases due to lack of enough time for physical activities, and increase in passive gaming and watching screen content.TV watching and passive gaming are rapidly displacing children physical activities with more teenagers showing increased preference to passive gaming over physical activities. The reasons behind such large number of students being attracted to passive gaming are that more teenagers find passive gaming more reinforcing and enjoyable compared to physical training. However, Russel and Newton (296) in examining the relationship between active and passive gaming reported that a controlled combination of the two may lead to improvements in some psychological aspects. This is because video gaming may lead to more relaxation and reduced tensions while physical activities would lead to improved cognitive development. Such mixed gaming was found more enjoyable and led to more actual exertion (Newton and Russel, 296). Such gaming as Kantor (259) asserts deny teenagers the benefit of developing more social skills as adapted in psychological gaming, and the benefits to regain control in times of conflict. Erickson (240) in a study on effects of play in children found that children involved in physical gaming try to regain control of situations while in conflict due to the increased sense of self-control. In a study of a child whose father, a military officer had died in the war, the child enacted the bombing activity with a bicycle to his peers. This was found to contribute to increased stature among his colleagues, his ability to circumspect with the bicycle contributed to the better cognitive development, and his admiration of his peers increased his self-ego and self-confidence (Kantor, 260). These factors contribute to healthy development of the child. On the contrary, Newton and Russel (296) assert that college students who reported to be more involved in violent gaming portrayed increased aggression and low moods, indicating the detrimental effects of video gaming and screen watching particularly involving violent images to college students, and children in general. Gleave and Hamilton (2) in an inquiry conducted on behalf of play England observed that good quality play provides better opportunities for children, their families and the community at large. The play was found to be fundamental in the health of a child, their happiness, well-being, and having a major impact on the health of children and their future chances in life. Importantly, the study observed that denying children enough time to play and exercise will have profound effects on their experiences and their life in general. This includes their mental and physical activities. These findings are in line with Kantor (259) argument that active play among children will lead to better cognitive and physical development, which would be a better way to improve their lives now and in the future. In a review of studies, Gleave and Hamilton (3) assert that play is critical to the psychological, physical, and social well-being of a child. In the play process, children experience real emotions, they create and experience their own uncertainties, they respond to new situations, experience the unexpected, and adapt better to diverse situations (Gleave and Hamilton, 3). In addition, play will enable children to establish and develop attachment with places and adults, allows for development of intimacy and familiarity with two, provides a detailed opportunity for learning independently, and contributes to development of confidence, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and resilience in children, all of which are linked to healthy development in children (Gleave & Hamilton, 3). Increase in structured activities and passiveness in children means the above benefits are sidelined, regarding psychological benefits in children. Self-directedness in a play is critical in achieving the above benefits among children. As Gleave and Hamilton observed, self-directed play during break times in mid lessons among children leads to better lesson concentration and behavior in class, as well as offering children a chance to interact, which increases their self-esteem and social growth. This means apart from ensuring that children’s play is not violent and would not lead to any harm, any defectiveness has to be avoided in child plays to motivate them to utilize their cognitive abilities to create and define situations through play, which leads to cognitive development and improvement in problem-solving skills. Starling (3) on the development of mastery in children noted that according to the Erikson’s theory of child development, mastery is essential in child’s inferiority vs. industry at between 6- 12 years. At this stage, children have an increasing need to master things such as reading and usage of tools. Moreover, children learn more by doing things they like to do and not the ones they are asked to do (Starling, 3). Increasing the child’s efficacy thus becomes essential in improving the learning process in plays. Starling in a study regarding the effects of unstructured play on children’s self-efficacy involving 21 children (11 males and 10 females) of between 8 and 12 years observed that qualitatively, there are multiple cases of self-efficacy development in children. Bandura, Posterali, and Caparo noted that children with a high sense of self-efficacy in academics had better behavioral choices, were more famous to their peers, and experienced less rejection among their peers than those who do not (Starling, 4). This implies the self-efficacy of children becomes critical in social development. Increasing children efficacy can be enhanced through increased self-confidence, which is attained when children learn to do things alone. Independence can be developed by ensuring children plan their own games and are supported and not guided in such unstructured games, which improve a child’s efficacy. Structured games will, therefore, reduce the learning process in a child compared to unstructured games, which reduces their self-efficacy, and limits their social development. Some of the plays that children can use freely to express themselves and enhance development are drawing, collages, using paper mache and block games where children arrange blocks to form different patterns. Playing is not only beneficial in developing physical health and abilities but has a great impact on social and psychological attributes in children. Passive plays do not involve any meaningful contribution by the child, but the child becomes a recipient of content, which retards their cognitive and physical activities, and sometimes impacting natively on their psychological well-being. To ensure the benefits of physical play among children for both psychological and physical health, child play should not be directed. Allowing children to design their games and construct meanings from such games leads to creativity and self-drive, which is critical in ensuring cognitive development in children. Therefore, active play in children has to be encouraged and facilitated in any way possible to avoid health complications in obesity and other negative behaviors related to passive gaming. Such an approach in a child’s play promotes major psychological, social and physical benefits involved in physical gaming. Work Cited Burgess R. Stephen, Stermer S. Paul, Burgess C. Melinda video game playing and academic performance in college students, College Student Journal, 46.2, (2012), 376-387. Erikson, E. H. Childhood and society. New York: Norton, 1963 Gleave Josie and Cole Issy, A world Without Play- A literature Review London: Play England, 2012. Kantor Charles Children’s Imaginative Play: A Descriptive Psychology Approach, Advances in Descriptive Psychology, 9 http://www.descriptivepsychologypress.com/Imaginative_Play.pdf Accessed 28th March, 2013. Russell, William D., & Newton, Mark Short-Term Psychological Effects of Interactive Video Game Technology Exercise on Mood and Attention. Educational Technology & Society, 11.2,(2008) 294-308. Starling, Paul E., An Investigation of Unstructured Play in Nature and its Effect on Children’s Self-Efficacy Doctorate Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 2011, Paper 15. Read More