Functional Play is Important in a Child’s Growth and Development  

Functional Play is considered as an important part of a toddler’s life. It is often named as a child’s first play. It helps in the development of concentration and attention of the children and encourages them to perform certain activities that can improve their memory and make them physically as well as mentally fit. Functional play forms the building blocks of stability, objectivity, and endurance in a children’s mind. The mental development of a child starts from the age group of 0 to 2 years until the child becomes a toddler.

Importance of Play in a Child Growth and Development

Playing is the most crucial job that needs to be performed by all the children for their healthier growth and development. Little children usually get fascinated by a box, block or a simple square toy. But, the functional play is not just about toys or stuffed teddy bears. It is a kind of play or a bond that a child has with the natural objects and surroundings.

Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of playing in the children’s lives in the psycho-social environment:

1. The true joy of play comes up when the toddler starts to observe the things around him. The child examines it using all of its senses like hearing, touch, vision, and smell. Thus, it helps in the stimulation of senses and enhances their ability to observe and classify things as good or bad.
2. The parents must make sure that the quality of the toys is good enough for their child to handle it. They must use all the safety measures for the protection of their child from any kind of injury. The adults must adhere to all the safety standards as mentioned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
3. Playing helps in improving the attention focus of the child by the act of performing a regular repetitive exercise like rolling a ball, making a tree house, etc. It helps them to sharpen their skills of organizing small things in their own unique manner.
4. It broadens their mind and provides huge scope for motivation, innovation, and
5. Playing offers an ideal opportunity for the parents to get involved with their toddler and help them to understand the cognitive aspects of human life by the means of playing games, building blocks, etc. Playing is the keyway of bonding with caregivers.
6. It teaches a number of cognitive disciples to the For instance, imagination play builds comprehensive skills, puzzle games builds logical and thinking skills and many more.
7. Playing helps in grasping the modelling techniques and task analysis for a better understanding of the context for the kid.
8. It helps the child to adapt to different environmental conditions and makes him or her strong and tough to face the minor obstacles in their life.

Importance of Functional Play

Functional play is the most essential element of Child’s cognitive development and mental growth process. The job of parents is to encourage and motivate their child to get indulged in playing and picking things up. Let your child explore new things in the world and make him adapt to the changing environmental situations.

Now, let’s have a look at some of the importance of functional play in the healthy development of a child:

1. Children become happy and curious about the sensory delights offered to him in the form of toys and objects. This helps in building pre-literacy and motor skills in the child and enhances their ability to think and figure out small playing issues all by themselves.
2. Functional Play is an epitome of strength, endurance, hard work and It grooms the life of a toddler by helping them to identify and classify various objects like lining up cars of different colors in a systematic way.
3. Moreover, it is an essence of a child’s mental wellness as it helps in building eye-hand coordination through snapping and interlocking different blocks, etc.
4. Functional Play also plays a vital role in the scientific application of the concept of cause an effect that can be examined by the way of crashing a car into the wall and many more.
5. It prepares the child to handle complex situations and obstacles which they can utilize in their daily routine life especially in play schools.
6. Functional Play is also helpful in creating better relationships and understanding the language and the vocabulary of the elderly folks. It helps them to initiate visual-spatial skills and the children try to communicate with their parents in their own language.
7. Functional Play is the key to impulse control. It helps the child to learn self-control, self-talk and emotion regulation by interpreting the results of the objects with which they are playing. Not only this, it helps the child to learn the positive emotions of empathy, kindness, and social competence.
8. Functional Play is the very first step to make the children get involved in some physical activity. Exercise makes the toddler physically fit and improves the bone density of the children.
9. It helps the toddler to learn from life lessons and to improve their mistakes and keep exploring new things and objects,
10. Functional Play helps the children to have better relations with their parents and caretakers as they act as a mentor, guide and friend to become a part of their active play program.

Wrapping Up

Functional Play is the beginning of a child’s emotional, mental and physical intellectual mind. It acts as a lubricant for the bones and muscles of the toddler and helps them to boost up their self-confidence and self-esteem by learning new things in life. All the repetitive actions that the child finds interesting help him to foster his neurological learning aspect in the brain and multiply the willpower of the toddler to understand and assimilate all the things in his mind. Thus, Functional Play is an essential drug for the basic development of the children’s mind.