Setting our children up for success through play

Play is FUN! More than that, play also offers endless opportunities to help your child learn, practice, and gain confidence in the skills that all adults need to be successful.

A team of researchers with Mind in the Making have identified seven key skills that all adults need for successful relationships, work, and life. These traits help us get along with others, plan, solve problems, reach our goals, and navigate all the challenges of life.

It is so cool to know that a newborn baby’s brain is already wired and ready to learn these most important skills. And children of all ages are ready to keep learning and practicing these skills through their everyday play!

So, what are these life skills and how can they be learned through play?

Focus & Control: Involves paying attention, remembering the rules, thinking flexibly, & exercising self-control.  Some fun games and ways to practice focus and control include: 

• Play “Simon Says” or “Red Light, Green Light”  
• Help your child prepare to move to new activities (Like leaving the park or cleaning up) by signing songs or saying a rhyme. 
• Leave out parts of songs or sentences in a favorite book and ask your child to “fill in the blanks” 

Perspective Taking: Figuring out what others think and feel which helps build strong relationships and reduces conflict with others. Some games for perspective taking include:  

• Play feelings charades 
• Ask your child how they think a character is feeling when you watch a TV show or read a story 
• Talk about how things make you feel and share ideas about how you successfully express your feelings 

Communication:   More than just talking, learning about communication involves determining what you want to communicate and understanding how it will be understood by others.  Some ways to build communication into your play: 

• Ask children to tell you a story about a picture that they drew or colored 
• Play games that require teamwork or working with others 
• Invite your child to act out characters while telling a story 

Making Connections: Figuring out what is the same and what is different, and the many ways to sort with similar and unusual connections. This can be key to creative thinking and problem solving! Some ways to work communication into play include:  

• Play sorting games that have changing categories or rules 
• Hum or clap a favorite song and ask your child to identify it- or have your child hum a song for you to guess 
• Play “I Spy” and take turns giving clues and guessing 

Critical Thinking: Helps children analyze and evaluate information to guide their beliefs, decisions and actions. Children need critical thinking to make sense of the world around them and to solve problems. Some ways to bring critical thinking into play include:  

• When playing games like checkers or basketball, talk through strategies: i.e. what will happen if we do this? 
• When children ask a question, or you observe something, say ‘I wonder if we can find the answer to that question” 
• Take turns building a story and pass the story over to your child on a plot twist that needs to be solved 

Taking on Challenges:   Children who take on challenges instead of avoiding or simply coping with them achieve better in school and in life. All adults and children will benefit from the life skill of taking on challenges by learning how to manage stressful experiences proactively.  Some ways to use play to learn to take on challenges includes:  

• Play games that slowly increase the difficulty in a fun way (this could be board games, cards, or clapping/rhythm games) 
• Model positive responses to losing games and don’t always let your child win  
• Engage in arts and crafts, and help your child fix projects that don’t turn out how they would like 

 Self-Directed Play: Our world is very busy, and families are often running from one activity to the next, often feeling overscheduled and exhausted.  Self-directed play happens when screens are off and children are encouraged to self-entertain, set goals for themselves, and work independently towards them, even when it becomes challenging.  Some ways that parents can help their child practice self-directed and engaged learning? 

• Give your child a puzzle to complete on their own 
• Challenge your child to “invent” a game or plan an activity for the family to do 
• Encourage your child to participate in a new activity or learn a new skill 

 We know that families are helping their children build these life skills every day- often without thinking about it! Play is an important part of everyday- for all people!!  Hopefully this sparks new ideas about how to bring more fun for you and your child!!