The Importance of Playing Games with your Children

~ By Teri Potter, Educational Consultant

Do you have memories of playing games when you were younger? Tag? Kick The Can, Foursquare? Monopoly? Candy Land?  Hide And Seek?
 
How do you feel when you think about playing those games?  Do you remember the people you played with?  Do those memories bring smiles or tears?  Do you have that same intensity of emotion and recall about the homework you did in say 3rd grade?
 
I want to address why playing games with your children is so important: whether they be physical games, board games, role-playing games, or even unstructured games.
 
An incredible amount happens when children are playing.  They learn to reason, negotiate and problem solve.  They develop large and small motor skills.  They broaden their language skills and vocabulary.  They learn to take risks and develop confidence and competence.
 
Do you think children today have shorter attention spans than in the past?  Can you agree that this is NOT a good thing in a learning environment?  Children who are over exposed to electronically-activated toys, television, video and computer games, and dolls that wet themselves will have shorter attention spans and less imagination than children whose time with these activities is limited. 
 
Increased attention span is one important benefit of playing games. There are many other reasons to invest time in playing games. By playing games, children can learn to:  take turns, pay attention to others, be considerate, follow the rules, predict outcomes, determine consequences, think critically, get along socially with others and use their imaginations.  Do you think these skills would be useful to them for success in the classroom?  How about in their personal and professional relationships? 
 
Social Skills are one of the 4 CRITICAL AREAS OF LEARNING:  People skills are one of the most highly sought skill today and are essential to satisfying adult relationships. Give your children a more successful present and impact their futures by providing playthings and play experiences that encourage INTERACTION, CONVERSATION & NEGOTIATION.  Board games, in particular, are excellent in all 3 of these areas but most game playing involves these three skills.
 
Children love playing games.  They love it even more when it means spending time with you.  Playing games promotes personal interaction and helps create opportunities for open communication.  While you play together, your child may start conversations he/she may not have felt comfortable with otherwise, and you might do the same.  Plus, turn-based games introduce and encourage social skills and help children (and adults) learn to win and lose gracefully. 
 
Game playing is not passive like watching TV. A regular game night gives your family a positive structure and an opportunity for connection and communication.  Good communication during a child’s early years builds confidence, accelerates learning, and promotes a positive influence that extends through adolescence and beyond. 

Use games, competitive or otherwise, in your family to help your children release tension in a safe, acceptable way.  Play games together that allow opportunities for expressions of antagonism in a safe context.  Play cooperative family games together.  Almost any game can be played so that the goal is a collaborative one, be it a board game or a more physical out door game.
 
Games can also be used to teach math, reading, history, science, social studies, geography and almost any other subject you would like…but most of all, GAMES ARE FUN!!  This brings us to the next three critical areas of learning - mental, physical and creative.
 
Mental skills: Games and activities with items to sort, classify, compare, contrast and match further children’s learning of simple math concepts and ready them to begin recognizing written numerals and letters.  Game play, with turn taking and use of simple logic skills (such as dominoes) is valuable for recognizing same and different characteristics.  
 
Physical Skills: Physical activity is a healthy way that the family can spend time together.  Hard exercise lowers kids’ bad cholesterol.  Even moderately intense exercise in childhood may reduce the risk of developing heart disease in adulthood.  With a firmer grasp on reality, play will no longer be an attempt to create the world in order to understand and learn about it as it does for the preschooler, but rather will take on more of the aspect of recreation and relaxation – as it does for adults.
 
Creative Skills: This is not just about being artistic.  Expressing one’s originality and imagination are major parts of it but it also includes the ability to problem solve.  As our world gets more and more complex, this skill becomes even more important to encourage and develop in our children.
 
What kids really need is balance in their lives and that includes relaxed downtime.  It really helps them (and us) unplug from stress and allows them to imagine and dream those “what ifs”. 

All of these skills, however, pale in comparison to the real benefit of playing games and that is that the mental health of our children is directly related to their ability to play.

So I encourage you to play games with your children; whether they are outdoor or indoor games, board games or unstructured play and rediscover the joy that these shared times will bring. 

About the Author

Teri Potter lives in Shoreline with her husband and their two sons, 17 & 12. Teri has 12 brothers and sisters; 28 nieces and nephews and 31 great nieces and nephews and thus a lot of "real world" experience with children. For over 15 years Teri has been an Educational Consultant with Discovery Toys.