Indisputably, children significantly benefit from playtime. Play enhances a child’s physical, mental, and emotional development. In particular, children often have fun playing with other children. Thus, social playtime for kids is essential. Let’s look at the social benefits of play in children.
Advantages of social play in children
Enhancement of social skills:
Social playtime often helps your child improve their social skills. In particular, your child learns to interact with others, develop new friendships and solve problems together. These are skills that your child will carry throughout their lifetime.
Improves their confidence:
One of the main benefits of social playtime is that it helps children build their confidence. When your child interacts with other children, they share their thoughts and ideas. This way, they build their self-esteem and become more confident with their ideas, especially when others respond positively.
During social playtime, there is minimal adult supervision. In turn, children become more confident in taking care of themselves and dictating their schedule during that particular time. Some social child games require children to take on leadership roles, boosting their confidence.
Develops emotional intelligence:
Emotional intelligence is equally important as academic intelligence. Emotional intelligence helps your child establish a strong rapport with their classmates, teachers, and friends. As a result, they are more likely to attain personal success.
Your child will carry this skill throughout their lifetime. This will help them both in their career and personal lives. Emotional intelligence helps your child develop excellent communication, interpersonal, and negotiation skills. Subsequently, they are likely to express themselves better.
Encourages teamwork:
At present, all hiring managers look for employees with excellent teamwork skills. Allowing your child to engage in social play helps them develop this crucial skill from a young age. When your child plays with other children, they learn the importance of teamwork.
This is because group games require everyone to come together to obtain a specific objective. Through social play, your child will learn to appreciate everyone on the team.
Helps your child become competitive:
It is important to encourage your child to be competitive. This way, they’ll always deliver their best in every task given. Through social play, children learn about friendly competition. Remember, most children’s games are often competitive.
These games teach your children to win in a highly competitive environment. Consequently, your children are likely to obtain both professional and personal success in the long run without having to step on others along the way.
Best social games for children
As mentioned earlier, social play offers a wide array of benefits. Below, we look at some of the social activities or games you should consider for your children.
Staring Contest
The first social activity you should consider is a staring contest. This game involves two children maintaining eye contact for several minutes. This social activity helps your child maintain eye contact and build more confidence during conversations.
You can always do this activity with your child if they don’t have a sibling. If your child struggles to maintain eye contact, be patient with them. Consider placing a sticker on your forehead to prevent them from shying away.
Roll the Ball
Another social game that your child will love is rolling the ball. Rolling the ball involves pushing a ball back and forth among multiple children. Toddlers can also take part in this game.
Children can use their hands or feet to roll the ball; it all depends on their age and physical abilities. Roll the ball helps children learn to be patient with each other and take turns during activities.
Virtual Playtime
Children also enjoy virtual playtime to the fullest. More often than not, it is impossible for your child to have physical playdates all the time. Thus, allowing them to play games on online platforms is vital.
Video games will keep them entertained and teach them how to use electronic gadgets. Nonetheless, always limit virtual playtime for children since it is very addictive.
If you are not careful, virtual playtime can adversely affect your child’s performance in school.
Emotion Charades
Another social game you should consider for your children is charades. Charades help children learn the importance of body gestures and facial expressions. This game requires children to act out different emotions for their peers to recognize them. In turn, they develop excellent emotional management skills.
Topic Game
The topic game involves selecting a topic and mentioning things that fit under this topic using each letter of the alphabet. For instance, if your topic is fruits, some of the answers to expect include apples, bananas, citrus, grapes, and melon.
Consider doing this activity with your child and their friends. You can act as the leader who records the points for each group. This game teaches children how to stick to instructions and learn the power of completion. Moreover, it helps your child learn new vocabulary.
Name Game
The name game is a great social activity for children to make new friends. This game requires children to pass a ball to someone after they have mentioned their name.
This helps them remember their friends’ names. Also, this game helps them pay more attention and be more interested in socializing.
Simon Says
Simon Says is a popular game among children. It improves your child’s listening skills. Also, it helps them stick to instructions and learn self-control. Children are basically required to do what Simon says. Otherwise, they will be out of the game.
Rhythm Games
Rhythm games are fun and help improve your child’s social skills. They are popular in most classrooms and enable your child to be more creative. Rhythm games also help your child to follow instructions.
Playing with Characters
Children love playing with dolls, animals, and cars, among other things. Most children love having conversations with characters. This way, they are able to express what’s on their mind genuinely.
As a result, they practice their social skills without worrying about the toy’s feelings. So, consider purchasing dolls, among other characters, that your children will enjoy playing with.
Play Pretend
Role-plays are one of the best games for improving your child’s social skills. In such games, children pretend to be different people. Then, they create a scenario that requires acting out.
For instance, the playhouse is a popular role-play among children. In this game, they take the roles of parents, children, teachers, or doctors. Acting out these different scenarios helps them improve their emotional intelligence.
Decision-Making Games
These games help your children develop better judgment. There are many forms of decision-making games. Some of them include puzzles and child-friendly crosswords. Such games help your child learn how to cooperate with others when done as a group.
They also make your child more persistent and thoughtful. More often than not, there are zero consequences for bad decisions. Subsequently, children don’t get discouraged by such games. In fact, they will always try again every time they fail.
Building Game
Building games improve a child’s social skills, especially when done in a group. For instance, when your child is building a block tower with their friends, they get to learn how to be patient and empathetic with one another.
They get to understand the importance of everyone to the group. This way, your child will be able to appreciate everyone’s unique abilities upon completion of the block building project.
The final verdict
There is a broad spectrum of social benefits that come with play in children. Through play, children interact with one another and make new friends. Consequently, they develop excellent communication and empathetic skills.
Fortunately, numerous games are uniquely designed to improve your child’s social skills. So, find several games that your child enjoys and incorporate them into your child’s daily routine.