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Benefits of Play for Children - The kids would love to play. They enjoy play time so that they often forget to eat, forget to learn are not even willing to do other activities if they’re playing. Parents often have to pull higher tension in advance to stop playing and do the homework or learning. This often causes the parents assume that their children are lazy to learn and just want to play. In this article will discuss why playing is considered important by some development experts and to the extent where the play is beneficial for the development of children.

According to Papalia, an expert on human development in his book Human Development, child develops a way to play. The world is the world's children play. With the play of children using body muscles, stimulate the senses of his body, exploring the surrounding world, discover what kind of environment that he lived in and discover what kind themselves. By playing, children discover and learn things or new skills and learn when to use such skills, as well as satisfy what is the need. Through play, children will be trained physical, cognitive ability and the ability to interact with others will flourish.

Playing is of course different things to learn and work. According to Hughes (1999), an expert in child development, said there should be 5 (five) elements in an activity called play. The five elements are

• The purpose of playing is the game itself and the perpetrators get satisfaction by doing so (without target), not for example get the money.
• Selected freely. Selected game itself, carried out on their own will and no one ordered or forced.
• Fun and enjoyment.
• There imagination element in its activities.
• Conducted actively and consciously.

Outside the opinion of Hughes, there are experts who define play as any activity that is felt by her children fun and enjoyable (pleasurable and enjoyable). Playing to use the tools (toys) or not. Just running around in the room, if the activity is felt by the child's fun, then the activity can already called a play that too.

Benefits of Play

Based on above it is important to provide a sufficient time for children to play, parents may think the things mentioned above can be found children with learning (study). There should be pointed to the play time as learning time, learn during playing. In fact, the smart child can learn himself, but some if just left to play without guidance they should not easy to learn. These opinions have a point, especially if intelligence is only related to academic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic. But in everyday life, intelligence is not just reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as academic ability is not the only thing that is important and needed. There are other things that are important and necessary, such as the ability to communicate, understand the perspective of others and negotiate with people. These things can not be obtained only by learning. Feeling happy, enjoying, free to choose and free from all charges because they do not have a target, also cannot be obtained from the learning activities.

When playing, children spend their imagination and ideas that are stored within him. Children express knowledge that he possesses about the world and then also at the same time can gain new knowledge, and all done by encouraging him. Not only knowledge of the world have in mind is expressed through the child's play, but also things that he feels, fears and joy. Parents will be able to getting to know children by watching their children while playing. Even the passing game (especially hide and seek or ole-playing) parents can also find the impressions and expectations of children against their parents and family. Playing pretend to describe his understanding of the world where it is located.

Creativity of children is also growing through the game, because original ideas that came out of the minds of children, although sometimes feels abstract for parents. Not only parents will get stressed, children are too. Stress in children can be caused by the burden of school lessons and daily bored routines. Play can help children to escape from the stress of everyday life.

What Should Parents Do? Does child need to play? Of course the obvious answer is that children need to play. Perhaps the parents are worried that too many children to play and did not want to learn. Back to the initial illustration, which need to be ascertained is whether children still have time to play, after an intensive learning activities. If it is true that children have time to play, then goes on to not want to learn, then the problem is how we motivate children to learn.

Some things should be done by parents to guide children in play so it was really useful for these children, are as follows:

• Make sure the kids busy schedule every day, there are still enough free time for children to play.
• Every now and then come into play with the children, understand themselves, joys, fears and needs. Who knows after that is no longer a parent that is too ambitious.
• Supports creativity game of children, as far as what is done to children in the game is not a brazen act, no harm, and not endangers themselves and others.
• Guiding and supervising the children in play, but not over-protective. Children may not know if what he did in the game is doing is wrong; therefore they need to be guided. But do not be over-protective to inhibit freedom. For example, if children play running and has been dropped is fair, so no need to forbid children to play running for fear of children falling. But if a child when playing a bicycle race, of course, need to be banned because of dangerous.

Even if the world is the world playing of children, but children need parental role to be in a world that is safe and comfortable. With a play, not only the children feel excited and happy when it did; but with proper guidance from parents, potential child can also develop, children can become smart by means of game. Children love and parents happy.

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