Well grounded children have developed strong social and emotional skills. Parents can support the development of positive values. They can give a child the courage to be successful and proud and to be independently different. Life provides a child, highlights of joy and happiness. It also affords frustrations and disappointment. Young people need the skills of coping with their own emotions and stressors. They also need to understand how others feel. This is the basis of future positive relationship skills and the later development of protective factors that may help reduce internal feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self esteem and counter external negatives such as bullying and manipulations from others.
Young children feel a mixture of emotions that often over whelm them so that they become momentarily inconsolable. Typically we watch young children “melt down” when they are over tired; they are in strange and confusing circumstances; they are not given what they wanted or expected; a friend a moment ago is now not wanting to play; etc. At these times it is very hard for the child to make good choices. The distressed internal world of the child is hard for both the parent and the child to fathom at times!
A child struggles with the mixture of total dependence on significant adults and jealousy of the adult’s time and attentions to others. Children test the adult’s patience with negative emotions, such as a desire for instant gratification or wanting things to only run their way! They cannot easily regulate their emotions. When a busy carer tells the child to run way and play on their own, the reactions of children are often mixed. They may happily become self engaged. They may not know what to choose to play on their own. They may feel rejected and keep coming back in an annoying way to curry attention. They may exhibit angry or sulking behaviours because the adult is not pleasing them immediately. They may go and do something deliberately naughty as if they do not care what the adult thinks.
Play and discussion of shared stories afford a training platform to express emotions. It also teaches activities that are fun to develop on ones own so that a child can work and play independently without feeling isolated or rejected. It affords the time to share funny and happy recollections of the activities done together. A child feels happily attached to the caring adult. This is a bond and connectedness that will last much longer than a single period of play. Importantly, this time together in play, affords the carer time to listen beyond the immediate conversation. One becomes sensitive to how the child is reacting and the appropriateness of a child’s mood. The comment made by a child whilst playing, often parallels what the child feels or sees in reality. An astute adult can help a child regain the perspective of how something is being viewed or felt.
Some of the activities in, “A World of Play,” lend the caring adult the opportunity to teach a child how to relax when over excited. Some afford the opportunity to discuss topics such as sickness or death in a play setting. This often helps if the family or the child is faced with sickness later. Well chosen play activities can provide the opportunity to share, to explore one another’s ideas, to take turns and to be able to lose graciously. These are important skills and by the ages of 3 and 4 most children will be able to cope cooperatively for short periods of time. As they mature, this becomes more easily sustained.
In the main these activities are about having fun and being successful. A sense of ownership over ones success and knowing that one has the power to be successful in an activity is truly self affirming. The child feels good and is willing to share this feeling with other members of the family circle. Being proud is certainly an important ingredient for self esteem. Help your child celebrate growing independence and self worth. Such a positive attitude is integral to sound learning and later involvement in more formal activities.
