Playing with children

How to teach your child to play. That will help you grow

As our children grow, they also increase their needs and requirements. A one-year , for example, a rattle will make something of grace, but will not enjoy it as much as a baby . Therefore, we have selected some guiding advice on ways to play with your children according to their age.

The beginning of the game

During the first eighteen months the child interacts with the world through their senses. Just act. There is only the here and now. His first game is to repeat movements of his body (put his hand in the mouth, for example). Their next game is trying to reproduce objects reactions out of it (move a rattle, etc). Gradually, these movements will vary in what amounts to a genuine experiment. Then relate the movements of the different senses , allowing you to solve "problems" new.

In this period there is an essential toy: a person who is with him, who cares, who speaks, who sings, she strokes and plays with it. That gives you 20 times the pacifier that the baby has dropped. The relationship with this person is an important requirement for the proper development of baby. The pacifier and rattle toys are the next best, and all things that can suck, move and sound. In short, babies want toys that respond to their actions.

From crawling to the tricycle

Around the year the child begins to move, crawl , stand on your feet, walks , runs, jumps ... Each of these stages is necessary. To run there needs to be walked, and walking is essential to crawl. Having security on your body will help you stay safe on the rest of things. Your body is a toy privileged to learn to think (what I have to put your legs to swing alone?). Anything that fosters their safe movement will be a good place to play: the field, the park in your neighborhood, a stairs safe. The first toy will certainly be a mat for crawling and then while walking push toys, ride-on, balls , tricycles , skates , bikes , etc..

Pretend play

During his second year of life the child acquires a new capacity of high importance to its development: the ability to represent, which allows you to leave the here and now. Now you can say what he has done or will do, imitate something you've seen that is not present, draw and, especially important for the amount of time you spend on it, "play to do what." In this game developed fundamental intellectual capacity of human beings: that of giving an object other than their own meaning based on similarities dwindling. In addition, this type of game is going to introduce into society through it will discover facts, some very distant (the hospital, the forest ...) and hence the importance of that is free of gender stereotypes or antisocial values ​​. Finally, the play to do what you can "play" their concerns, expressing and finding solutions. Of course this is one of the best ways to develop the language . The best toys are your friends . With them and little else, invent their best adventures and be trained in the skills of cooperation and negotiation. Anything can become any other, but there are some toys that should not miss. A phone, things for cooking , fabrics for dress , dolls and stuffed animals, toys to crafts, among many others.

 

Toys recommended by baby's age

Buy from the best toys for children

Do you have to buy a gift for a boy or a girl and do not know what to get? Depending on their age and need, we have sought a list of toys , classified better and worse, and age, to help you find the right toy for the child.

The best toys recommended

Toys for Babies 0 to 1 years
- Toys that stimulate the senses with colors, textures and sounds different.
- Toys that encourage movement, easy to grab, crawl ... stimulators
- Toys that stimulate the emotions, stuffed animals, dolls ... Toys for 1 to 2 years - Toys invited to visit the space walkers, run-halls, foam rubber blocks ... - Toys that connect events: cause and effect, hitting, throwing, insert and remove, stack and towers, experiment with water and earth. - Toys that encourage imitation of simple actions: animals and small dolls, puppets, telephone, cars ...

Toys for children 2 to 6 years
- the outdoor toys, tricycles, balls, rope, buckets, shovels, strainers ...
- To build, fit and improve their manual dexterity.
- To imitate scenes work and family: dolls and ins, kitchenette, gadgets, shopping, medical equipment, etc. Toys for 6 to 10 years - Toys for the outdoors: skate, bike, board games and simple strategy. - Construction of different types: bricks, rods, three-dimensional etc. - Toys of experimentation and research environment. - To imitate fantastic scenes, spies, heroes, comic, film or television, etc..

The worst toys

- Those toys that do not meet basic safety standards: checks bearing the seal of the EEC, which does not splinter, do not emit colors, etc.. and, where appropriate, stating "Unsuitable for children under 36 months."
- those who directly incite violence, the practice of unhealthy habits, discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, sex, etc.
- Those who are impractical, difficult to store, they need constant replacement, the loss of a piece of unusable, and so on.
- The unsuitable for children for whom they are intended: not responding to their interests or tastes, age, or the possibilities of game offers where you live.

Importance of play in childhood

Contributions of games for children

The game is an activity, as well as enjoyable, necessary for cognitive (intellectual) and affective (emotional) of the child. The game encourages spontaneous and free creativity of children and promote their maturation. Children have few opportunities to play freely. Sometimes, we believe that " play by play "is a waste of time and would be more profitable to take advantage of every opportunity to learn something useful.
However, through play, children begin to understand how things work, which may or may not be with them, they discover that there are rules of causality, probability and behavior that must be accepted if you want others to play with them . Children's games should be regarded as their most serious actions, said Montaigne. Spontaneous play is full of meaning because it arises because of internal processes that we do not understand but we must respect. If you want to know the children, their world is conscious and unconscious need to understand the game, watching them discover their evolutionary acquisitions, their concerns, fears , needs and wants those who can not express with words and finding out through the game.

Game and reality: the value of symbolic play (pretend play)

The types of games children show their evolution :
- In the acquisition stage of sensory-motor skills are recommended functional games, action games, feelings and movements .
- In the early stages of child's thinking in the start thinking in concrete operations, are recommended fiction games, symbolic or representational .

- At the stage of formal thought and concentration are best regulated and structured games, sports, competition . In addition, symbolic play or fiction is the most appreciated, is forced to adapt to an adult social world and a physical reality that still does not understand the child needs to invent your own world from that which lives, but translating it into a symbolic language personnel, with the outside world to adapt to their needs. Through play the child fiction gradually assimilates the external world, it develops and adapts to it in a continuous process of maturation.

Game and intellectual development

Children begin to use symbols from the second year of life (eg, saying a dog saying "wow" or to act as if drinking from a cup), repeating actions that have been in adults, accounting for events that have lived or imitating the operation of certain objects. In that imitate the child comes the assimilation of observed situations and relationships in the world around him. Part of concrete models to later reach the concentration . The symbolic function is a common representation goal for the game and other human activities such as language . When it fails the acquisition and use of the symbolic function (aphasia, autism , mental retardation ...) reveals the importance of it in personal maturity and the need to enhance practice in childhood spontaneous game that can be achieved appropriate levels at each developmental stage.

Game and personality

Sometimes, certain difficulties, which may seem insurmountable to the child, can be met through the game , always addressing and raising their way one by one aspect of the problem.

The jealousy on the birth of a new sibling , for example, is a common type of conflict, which often appear masked in the games in response to internal processes that the same child unknown, but to help you accept that reality, to represent the problem of a new and pleasing to him, as when his dummy is the same way that he wants to be treated or reacted in their game as would have done in reality. In the game there is a match between the imaginable (everything is possible) and allowed (rules of conduct), in which the child has time to learn what is feasible and accurate while allowing a graceful exit to their impulses.

The game is an essential activity

- The game is necessary for the intellectual, emotional and social .
- Allows three basic functions of psychic maturation: assimilation, understanding and adapting to external reality.
- offer the child requires time and favorable media so you can make their own way.
- Promotes early social acquisitions, the skills of social communication . It is a preparation for adulthood.
- As exploratory behavior, promotes the creation of fields of action and creativity.
- has a sense for the child. When any game is interrupted, is deprived of the outcome of a story created by himself with a purpose that does not always comprehend.