Play as a tool for Emotional development
Life is an ongoing learning process. We are born to learn and grow. As long as we live, we find ourselves in the middle of situations where life expects us to learn lessons, detach from situations and move on. As adults, we usually find impermanence and detachment very difficult to deal with. Perhaps because all through our growing years, our social construct was training us to conform, with very little or no scope for independent STEAM learning. To behave in a certain manner, to learn a structured curriculum in a pre-set manner had been the established code for grooming children for decades or perhaps centuries.
When we look back at our childhood, it was the medley of situations we experienced, our response to those situations, and the learning we integrated from those experiences that defined the blueprint of our STEM education process. Even though we were all learning the same chapters in school, the same question answers dictated by our teachers, yet our attitudes and values were different.
We can attribute differences between children firstly due to the unique internal wiring each is born with, and secondly to the social fabric of their ecosystems comprising their homes and family members. The social context which we often label as ‘upbringing’ plays a huge role in shaping behaviors, creativity, and the soft side in children. Social and emotional learning is the primary bricks that create an attitudinal boundary between children growing up in conformed slate learning environments.
Another key element that really affects how one deals with life is how we learn to handle change or impermanence. Impermanence is a very difficult thing to deal with, especially when children grow up in protected environments. Many social scientists and child development researchers have often identified play as a powerful tool to establish the relevance of change and teach children to accept it easily.
Children can learn to make peace with change and impermanence by making peace with making mistakes and failure as such. It is only when a child learns to make peace with failure and making mistakes, will he be able to take responsibility for his actions, choices, and decisions. Failure and loss are huge life skills that children should learn to embrace right from their early years.
We should allow children to learn from failures by refraining from shaming or attaching labels when they fail. If children attribute a negative identity to failure, they will always be scared of making mistakes. Parents, teachers, and caregivers need to give mindful responses when children make mistakes or fail at a task.
Many scientists like Montessori and Dewey have advocated play as a great medium to teach important life skills to children. Uncontrolled play with peers can help children build multiple skills and coping mechanisms. Key skills that scientists feel play can teach are conflict resolution, decision making, effective communication, and acceptance of failure or mistakes. Play is serious business for children. We certainly cannot overlook the role that free play can have in developing the social and emotional skills in children. Many times we come across caregivers trying to control the play environment of the child to an extent that he is cushioned from all disappointments, leave aside getting hurt. I am certainly not advocating carelessness or overlooking a child’s safety in any way. My point is that beyond ensuring the basic safety measures, parents and teachers should allow children to fall, earn their favorite candy, and feel disappointed in not getting something they really wanted.
Since family structures are shrinking, children today are living in insulated environments where instant gratification has become the new parenting norm. This can have far-reaching consequences on how children view and handle life later as adults. Children need to learn and accept that life is an impartial teacher and does not differentiate between anyone.
It is important that we help easy learning for kids and life skills organically right from the early years and not like another well-defined curricular subject. It may be a great idea to devise experiential ways of embedding values and life skills in our school lesson plans through group activities and guided play, which may not be structured at all.
Original Source: Play as a tool for Emotional development