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Revealing the Invisible World of Child Play DevelopmentChild play development is the child's interaction with theworld through play that causes his or her mental and physical capacities to develop and mature. Child play development is a natural process that occurs optimally when the child is given time to interact with the natural environment. The continual development of play is what characterizes the child, but can a child be defined? What is a child? Is it that chatty, playful, noisy lass we hear in child play cavorting around her bedroom? Is it that glum, pouting, sobbing lad, staring at us from across the dinner table, offended by a real or imaginary slight? Is there something of heaven and hell, mystery and magic, an ever changing invisible chameleon in them, so common and known to us that cloaked in familiarity, we stand blinded from seeing the nature of our own children? It's easy for parents to take for granted that we know our children. It's even easier to take child play development for granted as just play and realize that child play develops the brain. Child play develops the body. Hence, play stimulates all phases of child development. Hopefully you've already seen the research indicating the vital importance of play to a child's mental and physical health as well as her ability to learn. The term child play development, as utilized herein, refers to the interest stimulating interplay between the child and his environment that enlivens the spirit and invigorates the desire for the child to continue exploring and experiencing that environment. The term, child play, is, also, used to emphasize the fact that the child and play are inseparable and indistinguishable that to define one is to lose the other that the healthy unfettered, unstructured child's brain creates play wherever he or she goes, seemingly out of thin air, when given the slightest opportunity for child play development. One might say the child is like an artist whose canvas is the environment in which he or she plays. Child play development is an ongoing process. To a certain degree, child play is indefinable in the way that art transcends words. Our inability to scientifically define play may explain, in part, why it is often taken for granted and why it's vital importance only recently realized. Child play development is used to stress the fact that child play is always stimulating child development. That is to say, play is never just play, but intrinsic to child development- hence the term child play development. Thus, to help us get a mental sense of this will o' the wisp child play development, I've taken an adult's memories of child play and woven them into a vignette. As you read the following story, see how many places where child play development is involved. Also, note any factors that distinguish the child from the adult. When six year old Tommy awoke that morning, it was as if a child play development anticipation switch had gone off in his brain sending adrenaline driven excitement leaping through his body, buoying him up, lifting him from his bed, and on to his feet, where he moved effortlessly, unlike so many adults who follow their every movement with an effortful grunt. While he bolted from his bedroom to the space heater in the kitchen, thinking about the new beagle his dad had brought home only last month, and what the day might bring, he shivered with expectation, as the child play development brain switch turned up another notch. Dressing himself in front of the space heater, his mother handed him his trousers, shirt and socks. Warm heat on his back comforted him while he donned his clothing. He didn’t realize that it reminded him of the times he’d climbed into the security of his mother’s lap, laid his head against her chest, enjoyed the warmth of her body, smelled her familiar, comforting scent, and listened to the calming sound of her heartbeat that reminded him of the tic-tock of the grandfather clock in the living room. Now, while listening to the whirring of the furnace fan, only a hint of propane could he smell, but he almost sneezed, on account of the dust particles floating in the air, tickling his nose. He couldn’t help staring at the glowing heat for it fascinated and mesmerized him. His mother had prepared his favorite breakfast: fried eggs with toast. Hurrying to the table, he began drinking the glass of milk she poured for him, the same milk his father had drawn from one of their Holstein cows that very morning. Even before the milk reached his mouth he felt its warmth on his face, and noticed how it lightly fogged the inside of his glass. Then, as it touched his lips, he felt its soothing wetness, but, before he opened his mouth, he tasted its sweetness with his tongue tip. While drinking his milk, he looked through the bottom of glass at his mother. He giggled at the distortion of her image. Then he pointed the glass, like a telescope, at his father who was reading the newspaper. Startled that his father’s bulging image reminded him of an alien he’d seen once in a movie, Tommy quickly set the glass down, glanced up, and found, to his relief, dad was still dad. He dared not tell his parents what he was doing lest they scold him for playing at the breakfast table. Shifting his head like a radar antenna, smelling something that overpowered his senses, Tommy instinctively made a face and shook his head as his father added a little shredded cheese to his scrambled eggs. Yucky cheese, he thought. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the overwhelming odor of the sliced bananas his mother was adding to her cereal almost smothered him. How could adults like these stinky foods, he thought? His grandmother told him that he might have liked these foods too if his parents had gradually introduced them when he was younger. He didn’t think so. Still excited with expectation, dying to rocket outdoors, but knowing his parents would object if he ran inside the house, Tommy controlled himself as best as he could, until he opened the door, and rushed out, inadvertently, slamming it behind him, so that he winced our of fear his parents might bark at him. What greeted him outdoors proves, virtually, indescribable since it transcends the adult experience. His rapidly, complexifying, growing brain and other keen senses, synergizing with his child play development experiences, on the farm, produced a mental shift, almost like a two dimensional object suddenly springing into a three dimensional one. Due to this transformation, he perceived the world as new, exciting, and alive, as if over night it had recreated itself. What's more, not only did everything seem new to him, but it seemed infused with personal familiarity, as if the farm were an organic extension of himself. So, for example, when the old wooden trough, which each spring birthed thousands of his pollywog pals that he dearly loved to catch, sprang a leak and he feared it might be replaced with a new metallic one, Tommy stared at his dad with such sad eyes that his dad decided to repair instead of replace it. From the time he could first walk, his father endowed him with an appreciation of nature, by pointing out its magic and mystery. His father's words filled him with wonder and awe, reminding Tommy of the time, when his dad mysteriously began digging into the dry earth, and how he'd delighted when water miraculously bubbled up from the spring just below the surface. So, while his dad worked, Tommy experienced adventure. He spied the distant alfalfa fields where he liked to chase Monarch butterflies-catching them in jars, the reservoir where his frog friends croaked-avoiding his diving attempts to trap them, the permanent pasture in the foreground where the irrigation water forced gophers out of their holes to play while cawing crows circled and dove from above, the lumber pile behind the back shed where his scrambling, blue bellied, bob tailed lizard pals usually managed to evade his wild grasping reaches, the garden before him where he, not only picked grapes and vegetables with great grandmother, but avoided angry stinging yellow jackets by diving into the safety of his makeshift burlap sack tent, and to the old oaks, hiding earwigs under their bark and providing branches, where hopping tree sparrows chirped, as well as a lower limb where a house finch nest lay, still out of reach of Tommy’s outstretched arm. And there stood still more for Tommy to recall, as his gaze shifted to the west of the house, toward where robins flocked to the lush berry infested pepper trees, to where he gathered sappy, sticky, aromatic glue from the tall pines in order to snare the warring red ants and then incinerate them until they popped with his trusty magnifying glass, to the metal trough where he splashed the crazy skating skeeters dancing, teasingly, atop the water, to trekking the many hill trails with his faithful beagle early each afternoon, to once spying a majestic four point buck with his dad as it stood in the shade of a juniper, to gathering a bouquet of golden poppies for his mother from the high plateau in the east above the farm, to picking apricots with his grandmother in the early summer, to gathering newly laid, damp, hen eggs with his father just before sunset, to staring out, with the crisp wind in his face, at the countryside from the highest point on the ranch at the day’s end with appreciative belonging. The whole six years of his life, this is all he’d known, and, like the old oak tree that stood deeply rooted in the land, he felt a part of it all.
Much of the Tommy's child play development is influenced by the fact that it takes place in nature. We note some of Tommy's child play development related experiences as follows:
Children of Play in Nature," lists 14 vital physical, social, emotional and cognitive benefits that merit your perusal. They are the following:
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