It’s easy to say YES to every request of your child and yield to their whims and fancies. Children these days are inclined more towards screen time. As committed parents, we must schedule our priorities clearly and plan quality bonding time with our children. Playtime is the best way to approach this.
Teaching children life skills from an early age like good habits, safety, self-help, clear communication, and creativity helps them grow up as responsible individuals. A few methods are illustrated below that will help us to enhance their knowledge and skills during playtime.
Sports
Try various outdoor sports like tennis, badminton, athletics, football, cricket or basketball. You may enroll in classes or play with them at home, firstly explain the basic rules of the game and give them a turn to play. It’s the best way to make them realize that through practice and patience, the skill level improves. Some games children play individually and some through a team. They also realize how important it is to be a team player. Playtime is important. You can impart to them the knowledge of why it is important to be physically active and the health benefits associated with regular physical activity. Check out Outdoor Sports Toys.
Safety
This is the most underrated but most important life skill we need to educate our children on. Safety means protection from injury or danger. We can role play with our children as a stranger and teach them not to eat chocolates or engage in conversation with strangers and create more awareness on good touch and bad touch. Traffic lights, a simple, but fun game to teach them road sense. Ask them to draw two circles in a rectangular chart, color them red and green. Show the chart and call out the color “Red”, which means they should stop moving, and green means “Walk”. Another most important safety rule we should teach them is not to push or pull anyone while playing at the playground, wait for their turn, not to open car doors while the car is moving, not stretch the hand out of the bus window. During evening cycle time on the road, explain each concept, as they become clearer with the first safety rule, move on to the next. Depending upon the age of the child, explain in simple words.
Self-help
Asking them to do simple chores at home has many salient benefits. Simple tasks like clearing away the toys after play, setting the table during dinner time, making their own bed after waking up, packing their snack box, filling their own water bottle, arranging their bookshelf, and having their own bath teach them to be independent and responsible. For slightly older kids in the age of 8 years and above, ask them to write their organizer and tick each task completed. The primary advantage is that the motor skills get developed, children gain more confidence in their ability to try new things. The Japanese 5s concept of Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain to keep their surroundings clean can be implemented while clearing their toys and cleaning their messy room. “A place for everything and everything in its place”.
Communication
The most important skill each child should develop from a young age. If they can’t articulate clearly, they will not be understood and it will lead to several unnecessary frustrations for them. Play the tag a story game, ask a group of children to sit in a circle, the first child says an opening sentence of the story, and the next child continues with his own. Children learn to add humor to the sentence and creativity through out-of-the-box thinking. There are several board games like Guess who and Taboo. Getting the opponent to guess a word by giving clues without saying the word is Taboo. In Guess Who – players use yes/no questions to identify the characters their opponent has.
Creativity
Encourage free play amongst children, they will definitely surprise you. Recently, a friend visited us from Chennai along with her 8-year-old daughter. Both the girls started playing with toys kept in the cupboard. They pulled out the Barbie and clay. They surprised us by creating a dress and accessories for Barbie using the different colors of clay. In Fact, Barbie was looking more adorable and colorful now. Check out Recreational Toys to enhance their creativity.
Being a firm and loving parent is the best gift we can give our children. Enforcing strict discipline towards screen time rules may seem a bit offensive for them, but as parents, we must guide them in the right direction. A traditional play way approach helps to develop cognitive, fine motor, comprehensive, and communication skills. Through playtime, we can enhance their knowledge and communication skills by constant interaction with them, their involvement and participation will help them increase their skills.
