Our childhood’s best moments are associated with time to play and have fun with friends on a playground. Endless adventures and dreams come true. The Academy of Pediatrics of America describes playing as an essential activity that contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of the children and youth who participate.
For parents with young children, it is essential to have a restful night; however, there are times when this seems like a difficult task, as many children go to bed late; however, there are activities that can help this goal. For example, children can play in the community playground during the day, allowing children to exercise by playing, which will enable them to go to bed early and with deeper sleep. Playgrounds are spaces designed especially for children, providing a safe and challenging place at the same time where children, young and old, can find a place to express themselves and create fantastic adventures.
Playgrounds and their role in child development
Obesity has been one of the diseases that progresses silently worldwide and reaches record levels in children. Physical activity is an essential practice that, in many cases, is not practiced for various reasons, among the most prominent are a lack of confidence and that parents do not perform activities or play outdoors with their children.
The current lifestyle and the underestimation by parents of the negative impact children have of not being active translate into health problems. The development of children must be complemented between school and a playground. The teaching you get from an activity is different from that experienced by running, climbing, or swinging.
The playground provides a non-prescriptive play space, there are no imposed rules, and the only task is to have fun and play. It brings big benefits in developing children, allowing them to socialize, accepting rules of the game created by themselves. They receive ideas from other children. Gradually, children begin to be part of society, later to be an integral and active part of it.
It’s not just physical health
Today studies affirm that social development is a great precursor of children’s cognitive development. Playgrounds provide the possibility of cooperative play, conflict resolution, and communication between peers. The benefits of playgrounds are physical, techniques such as neuroimaging claim that it also has cognitive contributions.
Turning and bouncing are often done within a playground, which helps balance and moves the fluid within the inner ear, which generates healthy neural development and can help prevent some diseases associated with this factor. Formerly the playgrounds only contemplated physical development. Currently, a playground must consider action as something holistic. For example, climbing causes children to cross their hands at the time of play, and this game causes the brain to connect more between the right and left hemispheres.
When a child finishes climbing or climbing a ladder, they can improve their perception of where they are. Depth, when assessing risks and the chances of succeeding with its limitations, is part of the development that may not otherwise be possible. The new, modern and versatile playgrounds promote their creativity in children to play the game they want. They prevent injuries because the playground is being used correctly and not prescriptive because their design allows all children to play freely.
A good playground
Diversification on a playground is essential. Nowadays, there is the possibility of having shared playgrounds for an adult width or separated by a few meters but in a nearby physical place, which offers the opportunity to be watched without parents’ problems. It must also be equipped with games that mix imagination, the sense of adrenaline, physical work, and cooperative social work, thus meeting the demands of fun and the needs for physical and emotional development. Later, the children become healthy young people.
What do you think about this topic? Do you believe that physical development should be complemented with cognitive development?
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Image for Westplay.
