The importance of the game in the development of the child

The game is a basic element in the life of a child, which besides being fun is necessary for its development. But why is it important and what does it bring? Children need to be active to grow and develop their skills, the game is important for the learning and integral development of children since they learn to know life playing.

Children have to do things over and over again before learning them, so the games have a formative character by making them face time and time again, situations which can dominate them or adapt to them. In addition, games can be of all kinds: table, sports, and so on. Through the game children seek, explore, try and discover the world for themselves, being an effective instrument for education.


The game develops different abilities in childhood

The game is an exercise that the child performs to develop different abilities:

- Physical: to play the children move, exercising almost without realizing it, with which they develop their psychomotor coordination and gross and fine motor skills; In addition to being healthy for your whole body, muscles, bones, lungs, heart, etc., for the exercise they perform, in addition to allowing them to sleep well at night.

- Sensorial and mental development: through the discrimination of shapes, sizes, colors, textures, etc.

- Affective: when experiencing emotions such as surprise, expectation or joy; and also as a solution of emotional conflicts to meet their needs and desires that in real life can not be given helping them to face everyday situations.


- Creativity and imagination: the game awakens them and develops them.

- Form cooperation habits, in order to play you need a partner.

- The game makes babies and young children learn to know their body, the limits of him and his environment.

Children should enjoy their games and recreations and should be oriented towards educational purposes in order to get the maximum benefit.

At first, children only develop by the immediate perception of the situation, do the first thing that comes to mind, but this type of action has its limits especially when there are problems; Through play, the child learns to develop in the mental environment, using thought to go beyond the concrete external world, managing to guide his behavior by the meaning of the situation, compelling him and motivating him to develop strategies for the solution of his problems.


For example, when the child wants to make his block tower higher, he will use his thought to discover that he must place the larger blocks in the base, or make a base with several small blocks and get to make a tower higher than if he did it by stacking one block after another.

The game and the age of children

From two years of age, the child begins a new stage of play using his previous experience to get new more elaborate learning because the nature of his games will change because he is developing his ability to think about his new discoveries, begins to communicate fluently, expand his vocabulary and have a better command of his body (gross and fine motor skills), making him look for new experiences, playmates to develop his imagination participating more in the world of adults.

The school stage means another step in the progress of their games, now they play at school and when they get home they continue to play and put into practice what they have lived and learned in school, imitating reality, representing through symbolic play everything what they have lived or want to live, allowing them to externalize their emotions: joys, feelings, difficult moments, frustrations, etc.

Marisol Nuevo Espín

Video: What is the most important influence on child development | Tom Weisner | TEDxUCLA


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