Making time to play
The modern-day child has a very busy schedule. It’s not uncommon for children, especially those growing up in our competitive society, to find that between school, after-school enrichment classes and family commitments, they have very little time to just play.
And yet, with current research evidencing the fact that play time forms the basis on which children hone the skills necessary for their social, emotional, physical and cognitive development, play might just be the very thing today’s overscheduled child needs.
If you are fretting that your child is too busy with after-school activities or homework to play, you might be glad to know that it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Here are some suggestions on how pockets of time in a day can be better utilised for some fun:
Travelling time: A lot of time is spent travelling to and from school and other activities, so why not make the time spent in the commute more fun by incorporating some play?
Good games to play while walking to the bus or train station include “Go find…” (where one person names an item eg. “a yellow flower” and the first person to finds the item wins), or doing creative walk routines (where each person decides in turn a combination of walking, jumping, and hopping steps that the other person should take). You could alternatively bring along foldable scooters, a skateboard or even strap on your rollerblades for the trip to the bus or train station and enjoy whizzing along to your stop. If your destination isn’t too far away, you might want to consider foregoing the bus or train altogether!
While on the bus, train or even car ride, play some thinking games, like creating the longest sentence you can with the words that all start with the same letter (eg. Tom tried to turn tilt the table to touch Tim’s toes), or a memory game (where each player names an item in turn, with the next player naming all the items named by prior players in sequence before adding one of his own). Even simple hand games like scissors paper stone could be fun!
Transitional time: A transition occurs when you move between one activity in your day to another. One way to squeeze more time out of a day is to make better use of this transitional time. The time between the moment the children return from school, till they sit down for lunch, for example, or from the time they finish lunch till they are due to sit down to do some work. Define 15-minute blocks between activities for some play time. This can be spent on indoor fun like a spot of Lego time or fixing some jigsaw puzzles. Simple and quick card games like SuperCircles, Spot It, Duck Duck Bruce, and 7ate9 are also fun and engaging and can be completed within 15 minutes. If time and weather permit, some time in the playground or kicking a ball around is always fun.
Work play into your daily activities: Change things up a bit by occasionally including some play time into some of your child’s daily activities, like meal time, for example. Grab some paper and enjoy a game of Pictionary round the dinner table, or one of the card games mentioned earlier. Enjoy those books before bedtime, and once in a while, have a family Jenga night instead.
Ultimately, the only way to make sure your children get some play time is to purposefully make time for it. So try it – you won’t regret it!
Vera is a restless don't-stay-at-home-mum who is happiest meeting friends and bringing her two kids out to events and activities around town. She also loves trying out new recipes, planning parties and Instagram. More of her life and exploits can be found at www.lifeisinthesmallthings.com
