Let's go to the playground! Guidelines for first-time parents
A playground It is much more than a handful of swings in a sand enclosure where parents and children come together to spend the afternoon when the good weather arrives. A playground is a space for learning and development in which children acquire a good part of the skills that will be essential for them to function in society. Behind an afternoon of games there is much learning, especially in values.
The development of psychomotricity in the playground
The playground It can be one of the most interesting urban plans for our children's leisure and, in addition, provide learning in fundamental aspects of their integral development. It has always been recommended, from an educational point of view, that children can have moments of entertainment, recreation and relief in the open air. It is one of the advantages of parks compared to other activities carried out indoors. Therefore, in itself, it is an already positive activity but also, the child faces a psychomotor challenge every time he tries to overcome the obstacles of each one of the elements of the park.
In the classrooms, the educators pay special attention to develop psychomotor circuits so that the child develops each one of the patterns that form this area. The parks are very complete circuits in this sense and prepared for any age. The child adapts to each of the parts of the circuit according to their abilities and possibilities. Through them we work the balance, crawling, ability to overcome obstacles, get up, sit down, stay on one leg, etc. All these activities provide a necessary cognitive development for later learning.
The benefits of children's social development
In addition, they have the possibility of interacting with other children of different ages and environments that will favor an enrichment of their social development as long as the parents are able to help them learn to behave appropriately in this regard. We should not interfere too much in social relations, especially because, sometimes, we even solve conflicts for them, substituting them to the point that they never learn the way they have to behave. That is why our role has to be of an indirect agent, support them, guide them, but let them act. It is very common for conflicts to arise because they want the same game as other children or because they felt displaced, pushed, etc.
All of this is part of a type of behavior typical of the game and the ages in which we move. The important thing is that they know how to respond to these situations with socially accepted behaviors. In most cases, the tendency in these situations is to go to adults to tell us what happened and try to resolve it. They seek protection because, in this way, they feel more secure.
The basic rules of behavior in the playground
Within the rules of social behavior that must be learned in the playground we can highlight some of them to which we must pay special attention and as parents we have to try to achieve:
- Respect your turn: Children tend to be very impulsive and want what they want immediately. Through the game they have to know that there may be other people who are before them.
- Patience: wait for the game we want to be free or be able to respect the rhythm of others in the game even if they are slower. With this we can teach them that life is like that and that they have to know how to wait.
- Share: children usually have a fixation for a game and do not tire of playing repetitively the same. You have to teach them that it is not theirs exclusively and that they have to leave it to the rest of the children.
- Help others: Despite the fact that selfishness in these ages is very widespread in the behavior of children, we have to teach them to help those children who may cost them to climb the slide, jump an obstacle, etc.
The playground, much more than a playground
It may be habitual for us to feel sorry or it does not seem fair to us the way in which our son has been treated and, in an impulsive way, in front of that situation that is hurting us emotionally, let's look for the direct and implied way to solve the problem. But there we have to try to be strong and, despite our emotional states, help them and guide them to solve their difficulties themselves. If we manage to act in this way we will see how each time our children will have more resources to solve social conflicts and each time there will be fewer situations of this kind because they will learn to develop at a social level. Iran will acquire a series of rules that will facilitate not only the game, but also social relations.
All these learnings that can be acquired through social action are intimately related to the most complete emotional development, since they will begin to have emotional responses to these social behaviors that we must help them to be properly managed. They will acquire a lot of security in the emotional plane as they learn the rules of behavior since they will provide a reduction of conflicts, and therefore, greater stability.
Finally, not only does play in the park bring benefits in all areas of child development, but it can also be positive for parents since they have the possibility of sharing experiences with other parents of similar ages. These conversations can help to understand our children and understand us, realize that what happens to us can be common and proper to the ages of our children and this can relax us. Learn from others in the way you act with your children or even observe behaviors that you want to avoid.
María Campo. Director NClic-Kimba
It may interest you:
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- Ideas to play with children and participate in their games
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