CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT-PSYC F014

The Role of Play and Toys on Child Development

This study seeks to inquire whether toys and play really have a significant role in child development. Previous research shows that by playing with toys, children develop an understanding of the real world and are able to develop building blocks of concept development and language (Newland et. al., 2001). Toys and play are two important aspects that contribute to child development by providing soft and gross motor skills, language-rich interactions, emotional benefits, and cognitive components such as spatial awareness, creativity, and problem-solving. With development and growth, children’s need for a particular type of toy changes with age, and their choice of toy is determined by their interests and behaviour. For instance, some children may choose manipulative games, memory games, or puzzle games while others may prefer board games, which are played indoors. Parents take over the responsibility of purchasing toys for children. Some parents purchase toys as gifts for holidays or birthdays for their children while others buy toys simply as a prize to encourage their children to keep doing well. Research conducted by Cagle (2021) shows that an American child between 0-9 years receives toys worth $300 approximately. Moreover, the number of toys purchased has been increasing every year, contributing to $ 22 billion worth of toy sales. This increase in sales of toys clearly shows that toy play has a significant role in child development. In light of these statements, the concept of toys and play is very important in the development of children’s linguistic, emotional, motor, and cognitive skills.

The concept of toy play helps in children’s language development as it incorporates various cognitive and socially interactive elements that enhance language skills. In particular, adults undertake child-initiated learning through guided play, which is very essential in developing language skills. Newland et. al., (2001) concur that language thrives through a playful interaction between adults and children. This shows how the presence of adults in play environments is important in creating a connection between play and language. There are two characteristics that potentially link language skills and play. First, the social interaction associated with various types of play feeds language development (Newland et. al., 2001). A good example is sociodramatic play, which allows children to create a play frame such as visiting the store and working together to create it. Through such frames, children learn how to coordinate actions and negotiate roles, which basically enables them to use mental-state verbs such as explain and want. These activities of negotiating and taking on roles point to social play, which encourages children to use advanced linguistic forms. In other words, children are more likely to practice a complex language when playing as compared to when they are not playing.

Second, toy play enables children to develop symbolic thinking. For example, during object-substitution pretence toy phones can represent a telephone scenario, which means toys symbolize real objects. This relationship between the toy and the object represented is similar to the relationship between a word and its referent. Considering that both linguistic communication and play have a common representational character, it means that play gives children the opportunity to form symbolic relationships (Newland et. al., 2001). Moreover, when children are left to take control over their interaction with toys, they get engaged and begin speaking about what interests them. Therefore, children can learn vocabulary items easily when adults follow the child’s interests as compared to when they make children follow an adult’s interests. Therefore, in free play parents should allow the children to play with toys on their own in order to learn their interests.

Aggression, jealousy, stubbornness, anger, fear, crying, laughter, and joy are among the various signs of emotion. As children play with their toys, they not only show the feelings that cause negative emotions such as jealousy and fear but also reveal feelings of happiness. During play, children learn to handle their fears by controlling their emotions. Moreover, children can link emotions and intellect through toy play hence choosing the right toys for play based on the child’s emotional needs is significant in supporting their overall development. Findings from a study conducted by Nandy et. al., (2020) reveal that most parents today are unaware of the right toys and play games that can give children the opportunity to develop better emotional experiences, which could result in maladjustments in future relations. Additionally, most parents have still not realized the significant role of play in the child’s emotional development. The choice of toys and play games determine positive emotional development such as initiative, joy, and interest as well as negative emotional development, including shyness, distress, anger, fear, and dependency. This means that caregivers or parents should consider toys and games that nurture the child’s emotional development.

Apart from emotional development, motor skills are important for the child’s psychological, social, and physical development. Studying children’s motor performance is essential in understanding their entire personality. According to Feldman (2016), movement is an important part of a child’s life, and understanding children’s motor development is associated with the creation of adequate movement programs. Motor development requires a regular sequence. For instance, great motor skills enable the child to control movements such as jumping, rolling, swinging, running, walking, standing, and crawling. On the other hand, fine motor skills or small muscle motor includes skills such as using objects, foot, and hand. Therefore, toys and play enable children to work body muscles in order to stimulate muscle functions. Unfortunately, some parents prioritize developing their child’s academic skills such as Mathematics and reading because they consider play as a time waste. On the contrary, reduced physical activity results in reduced academic ability in children.

Early childhood is a child’s golden age and the perfect time to develop their motor skills. The development of fine motor skills requires coordination between hands and eyes together with the child’s ability to move fingers (Yogesh et. al., 2017). Using manipulative toys can help children to develop fine motor skills by learning how to control their bodies. Using toys, children can rehearse different movements with the intention of establishing different relationships with the objects that surround them. By holding and moving toys, children develop fine motor skills such as hand and finger movement because fine movements involve smaller muscles such as those of the forearm, hand, and fingers. In other words, toy play enables the child to develop manipulative skills, which involve small muscles and small movements through activities such as picking up a toy. On the other hand, gross motor skills allow the child to use larger muscles (Yogesh et. al., 2017). These skills can be realized through active playing whereby children are allowed to move constantly while playing with toys, inventing, and exploring new games. Activities and toys that strengthen the child’s muscles are essential in developing gross motor skills. For example, toys such as hopper balls and fidget balls enhance the child’s muscle coordination and movements.

Cognitive development includes the child’s thinking skills and the ability to understand and process different types of information. Play and toys naturally give children the opportunity to practice various thinking skills, including symbolic thinking, problem-solving, imitation as well as cause and effect. For instance, if adults model drumming on pans and pots, the child quickly imitates and learns to undertake such actions. Piaget suggested that children can develop moral reasoning through social and cooperative play (Feldman, 2016). However, cognitive developmentalists point to physical play because physical activity and cognition have mutually exclusive domains, which go beyond infancy. Toys and play have a significant role in sparking imagination and creativity in children because they give them an opportunity to act out and work with different materials. Therefore, adults should select games, materials, and toys that support the child’s cognitive development (Healey et. al., 2019). For example, construction and building toys such as those that involve connecting pieces and blocks are considered to be “open-ended” toys that promote cognitive development. Children can use such toys in creating designs or structures in different ways. To create such structures, children have to pay attention and figure out how the materials will fit together. Consequently, children will be able to use impulse control in order to avoid knocking their construction down and involve flexible thinking while moving pieces around.

Conclusively, evidence from peer-reviewed research shows clearly that toy and play activities greatly contribute to child development in terms of enhancing motor skills, problem-solving, creativity, and language. The study also indicated that while parents want children to explore their full potential, most of them despise the role of play and toys in a child’s cognitive, linguistic, and emotional development. Parents need to spare time for playing with their children to help them develop and establish emotional relationships. The skills children develop during childhood help them throughout their life because toy play gives them the opportunity to learn various aspects such as handling difficult situations. Adults’ choice of toys also came out as an important factor throughout the study. It was concluded that caregivers and parents should be careful while choosing the type of toys they wish their children to play with. In other words, parents should choose toys that are appropriate for the child’s age and toys that will be significant in developing the child’s linguistic, emotional, motor, and cognitive skills.

References

Cagle, S. (2021). Parents’ Purchasing Process of Children’s Toys: A qualitative interview of study of mothers in the United States. https://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1741307/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Feldman, R. (2016). Child Development (Seventh Edition). Pearson. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c2vvHuJTr0lQ0jZ2XJ8mhV_yR5DtkT3J/view

Healey, A., Mendelsohn, A., Sells, J. M., Donoghue, E., Earls, M., Hashikawa, A., … & Williams, P. G. (2019). Selecting appropriate toys for young children in the digital era. Pediatrics, 143(1). https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/143/1/e20183348/37330/Selecting-Appropriate-Toys-for-Young-Children-in

Nandy, A., Nixon, E., & Quigley, J. (2020). Parental toy play and toddlers’ socio-emotional development: The moderating role of coparenting dynamics. Infant Behavior and Development, 60, 101465. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016363832030093X

Newland, L. A., Roggman, L. A., & Boyce, L. K. (2001). The development of social toy play and language in infancy☆. Infant Behavior and Development, 24(1), 1-25. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0163638301000674

Yogesh, Y., Rao, K. S., & Krishnamurthy, M. S. (2017). Role of Toys and Play in the Developmental Simulation of Children. International Ayurvedic Medical Journal. http://www.iamj.in/posts/images/upload/3462_3468.pdf