Why play is as important as eating or sleeping

The game is born from the freedom of boys and girls, it is life and health.

Exploring and exploring is part of it, and it allows them to progress, since, as neuroscience has found, playing makes better brain connections.

Children learn mainly by imitation and by interaction with the peer group.

Fortunately, human beings have different mechanisms for learning, including play, one of the most effective after learning by observation.

The psychologist Sara Tarrés tells us: “Play as a way of learning is a mechanism that allows us to acquire skills while having fun.

This fun is what motivates us and offers the opportunity to improve through repetition without giving up at the first change ”.

More information

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• Getting your child to learn while having fun: utopia or reality?

For example, during the first two years we see different forms of play-learning. One of them may be the game peacock with which babies learn to understand the permanence of the object. Says Tarrés: “Another also very common occurs between 18 and 20 months when they do not tire of throwing objects to the ground putting into practice their fine motor skills, their eye-hand coordination while they discover what happens when they throw different types of objects (some are they break, others bounce, others crush) ”. Through play they learn certain qualities of the things around them and the effect of gravity. And so with another series of activities that at this age are pure games, from fitting figures to running around the house hiding from one place to another.For Sara Tarrés, collecting toys should be considered as one more part of the game so that they incorporate this behavior into their routines and it is not so tedious for parents to repeat a thousand times that of "pick up your toys after playing

The nursery teacher Diego Sánchez considers it essential given that through play they learn to interact with others and “it helps them in their cognitive, psychomotor, social, affective and language development;

they also learn a series of basic norms and values ​​for social life such as sharing, respecting, interacting, resolving conflicts and, above all, enjoying. "

The illustrator and writer, specialist in children's literature, Núria Albesa has just published (as an illustrator)

(B de Block, 2021), and tells us: "Play enhances creativity, curiosity and imagination, stimulates attention, observation and memory and enriches their cognitive and social skills." According to Albesa, playing can be an excellent way to experience empathy, cooperation, self-control or a sense of humor with other children, and it can even be very useful to solve their own problems.

The teacher Ana Sanz says that children learn about everything and at all times, but that play is the great forgotten and the great misinterpreted: “It would be necessary to correct the error since it offers tools to interpret the world, opportunities to make personal decisions with criteria and puts children in situations where they apply established rules and respect them ”. And we wonder why they learn through play. And he answers: "Because they apply everything mentioned above from a situation of enjoyment." The game awakens the imagination from the freedom of being able to solve from your own criteria. Through this, creative processes are given that will facilitate the acquisition of different knowledge. “Let's remember that not all children learn in the same way, but creative development makes them discover their strongest side,the strategies where they are most comfortable, ”says Ana Sanz. Gone is going to school to learn to read and write. Currently, the complex forms of thought and the multiple intelligences that the game can awaken are given visibility.

The psychologist Sara Tarres affirms that “our brain, like the brains of other animals, is designed to learn better through play. When playing, the cerebral bases of pleasure are activated, that is why we have so much fun doing it and we don't want to stop ”. It ensures that when we play we secrete different neurotransmitters (chemicals that neurons use to communicate with each other but also with other muscle cells or glands). Among the substances that are secreted when playing, we find one that is key, related to learning and memory: dopamine. Dopamine makes us feel pleasure, motivates us and, according to various studies, it is an essential element for the memory of information.

In Diego Sánchez's class they play in different areas that favor coeducation, “such as a house, constructions, puzzles, art or in the classroom library”. He assures that there is also space for free play where they choose what they want to play and "other times we play in corners where I decide what each group in the class plays." It ensures that the two forms have their positive and negative part; “Free play is very good because there is no coordination on the part of the teacher, they play whatever they want, but they always tend to decide on the same area and on the same classmates; On the other hand, in corner play, the tutor designates a different area for each group each day, so everyone passes through each of the game corners and the groups are mixed ”.

For the illustrator Núria Albesa, books are an ideal tool for them to learn while having fun. There are a multitude of formats depending on the needs of each stage. “For example, for babies there are cloth books, bath books, cardboard books with textures inside, with sounds or with folding flaps. They can be an ideal tool to learn your first words, to promote speech and even to improve your motor coordination. As they get older, they can find activity books, search and find, coloring stories or those that speed up the mind or propose experiments and challenges to carry out as a family ”. Any book, in its own way, stimulates play and imagination, enriches your imagination and intellect.

Sara Tarrés concludes: “Playing in the street, outside the home, outdoors, running, jumping, laughing, screaming. Play at home, with board games, alone or in company. Imagine that they are pirates, doctors, teachers or astronauts. This is what children need in the same way as the air they breathe for healthy physical, mental, emotional and social development. Something that unfortunately our sons and daughters are doing less every day, playing more with consoles or tablets and less in the streets and parks, something that is detrimental to their mental health ”. Playing is creating. Creating is learning. And learning is acquiring strategies so that we can face life with tools.

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