09.04.2013 - Ausgabe: 2/2013

Play is vital for children

by Jeanette Fich Jespersen, Manager KOMPAN Play Institute, Odense (Denmark)

Children are increasingly cared for by nurseries and crèches. The children increasingly spend their time outside their homes in day-care centres. There is less time for the family, since both parents work. In addition, families tend to spend more time watching television, which affects toddlers to the same extent. All these cultural and social changes have an effect on the development of our youngest children.

Physical development in toddlers: Toddlers, like their parents, increasingly spend more time in sedentary activities: they are transported in prams, car seats etc. and are seldom required to walk.
Television and computer programmes for children under 18 months of age do not encourage physical activity. Life in many day care facilities also fails to promote physical activities. The ratio of adults to children does not allow much time for physical activity and thus most of the day-time is spent indoors.
The results are striking. More and more European children develop motor skills late, because the kinaesthetic receptors and the sense of balance are stimulated and used too infrequently. The result is that children need longer to build confidence in the physical abilities of their bodies. Children who do not have good cross-over coordination have difficulties in climbing a climbing net or catching a ball. Children who have not used their gross motor skills sufficiently develop difficulties with their fine motor skills. Not least, more and more children are destined to grow up overweight and obese, where no effort has been made to encourage physical activity.

Social changes in toddlers: The social life of toddlers has recently been more closely studied – with very interesting results.
Hitherto it has been accepted that toddlers are predominantly preoccupied with their own physical and cognitive development. Social interaction has been supposed to be of secondary importance.
The increasing institutionalisation of children has led to the situation in which they find themselves in the company of their contemporaries for the whole of the day. It emerged that toddlers interact with each other to a much greater extent than hitherto supposed. Researchers have observed that toddlers have come up with repetition games in groups and in these imitate each other's activities and noises.
For example, some toddlers found low stools, put them in a row and jumped down one after another, joyfully yelling “heeey”.

Command of language in toddlers: The command of language in today’s toddlers in most European countries is being retarded. One of the main impulsions for the development of speech is the interaction between adult and child. This includes when adults maintain eye contact with the child, do things with the child, name objects, compare objects and describe objects and situations.
Consequently, one of the most important tasks of the carer is to support the development of language. Resources, which compensate for this reduced face-to-face interaction, are helpful for this. Such resources include objects which reflect situations in the home or fire the imagination, to support the emerging imaginative play and role play of the toddler; objects which can be described, about which a story can be told, which can be named or compared. Objects which are intended to support these activities in toddlers will be helpful in sustaining language in an institutional environment, which is concerned with toddlers.

More body than intellect: Human beings are more body than intellect at birth and develop their intellectual capacities in order to become more intellect than body later in life. This makes demands on physical training and time. In a time of rapid change, in which many adults worry about the future of their offspring, schooling begins at an ever earlier age. This does not necessarily help the toddler in its later life, if this time is taken away from the time for play, which the toddlers normally spend in physical activities. Toddlers require physical play in order to develop fundamental capabilities for their later learning. They learn and develop their abilities in play.

Toddlers’ physical proportions: Whenever politicians and parents work on a more efficient nursery concept, it is often forgotten how small toddlers are.
In considering toddler development, adults ought to take absolutely literally the phrase, “from the child's perspective”.
Getting down on our knees, in order to see the world from their eye-level, is a good start if we are to understand dimensions and proportions from the toddler's point of view. A two-year old child is on average 90 cm in height. The proportions of the toddler's body are different from those of an adult’s body; toddlers have a larger head and shorter arms and legs in proportion to the body. This makes balance difficult. Play areas for toddlers should generally take into account the ergonomics and development of toddlers.

The sense of balance: The sense of balance should be exercised by toddlers, since their physical proportions make it correspondingly more difficult to keep their balance. The sense of balance is trained by physical activity, e.g. by gentle rocking, swinging or turning. Lying on the stomach and rocking backwards and forwards is an attractive activity, for toddlers have not yet developed the ability to rock properly and on their own. The rhythm of this movement encourages the basis for language. It has often been observed how children sing in tune whenever they are rocking forward and back.

Sense of space: Toddlers' spatial awareness has not yet fully developed. All the words which describe space must be assimilated.
Whenever toddlers fail to experience what it means to be above or below, to clamber over or under something, to sit higher or lower, they miss out on basic understanding of dimensions and space, and therefore later they also miss out on Mathematics. Spatial awareness has to be appropriately trained and challenged.

Visual and tactile awareness: Because of the delayed reaction time of the nerves in toddlers, they need longer to grasp their physical surroundings. Mastering steps, stairs etc. often takes up their entire concentration. A toddler's sense of touch is not at the level of that of a normal adult. Hand-eye coordination, seeing something and wanting to grasp it in the hand and the sense of touch have to be stimulated, supported and trained.

Germination of friendships: Scientific studies have shown that toddlers cultivate social interaction, although they still have a very limited repertoire of language. They invent repetition games and play these in groups, imitating the behaviour and noises of the others. Spring riders, small rockers or – to make eye-contact possible – tummy swings arranged in pairs and more generally playing in groups of two or three are beneficial, as is themed role play, which also facilitates physical activity.

Innate play instinct: Fortunately toddlers need little encouragement to grasp the idea of play situations, which stimulate and train the physical challenges described above. In order to guarantee that activities for toddlers remain linked to pleasure, adults should not exert pressure on children to improve their skills, but should be happy to encourage and support them.

Toddlers' play equipment for child development: The provision of suitable opportunities for play is an important contribution to countering the changes in everyday routine and reacting to the needs of toddlers. For instance, toddler-sized playground equipment is to be recommended for the development of language, creativity and motor skills. Such equipment should be calibrated to the needs of toddlers and their carers in day centres, in order to take account both of the stages in child development and of the educational objectives of the respective federal state.
Appropriate play equipment is ideal for play, fun and learning in the fresh air – both for toddlers and for adults.

Photos: Kompan