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The Power of Play
by:

Supporting Your Child’s Play

As parents of young children, it’s normal to wonder how to best connect and have fun with your little ones. It can be tricky, especially with so many toys available, advice from family and friends, and sometimes, feeling like you’ve forgotten how to play yourself. Keep reading to understand why play is so important, discover simple and fun ways to support your child’s development through play, and get some easy tips on how to enjoy meaningful, play-based activities together.

Why Play Matters:

Play helps your child grow and develop in many important ways. It encourages their thinking skills, helps them learn to get along with others, supports how they understand their senses and helps their body develop strength and coordination.

  • Helping thinking skills: play sparks creativity, problem-solving, reasoning, and language skills, like increasing their vocabulary and making longer sentences
  • Helping social-emotional skills: play teaches kids how to work together, solve disagreements and gain insights into what others might be feeling.
  • Helping with sensory understanding: through play, children learn to process different sights, sounds, textures and more, which helps them manage their emotions and behavior.  
  • Helping physical growth: play helps strengthen small muscles in the hands and fingers (fine motor skills), as well as larger muscles in the arms and legs (gross motor skills), supporting overall physical development.

Areas of Play that Support Growth and Learning:

  • Thinking skills: Try out pretend play games like, pretending to be a doctor or cooking in a kitchen. Use puzzles and building toys to support their problem-solving skills. Read stories together and encourage your child to make up their own stories or change parts of stories to boost imagination and language skills.
  • Feelings and Social Skills: Play pretend games where your child acts out different roles. This helps them understand and talk about feelings, learn how to share, take turns, and handle winning or losing. If your child has trouble saying how they feel, try drawing, painting or making crafts about emotions, and read books with characters facing feelings. These activities can start conversations about emotions and kindness. Playing group games or working together on a project encourages teamwork and better social skills.
  • Sensory Experiences: Use boxes filled with rice, beans, sand, or shredded paper for your child to touch and explore. Finger painting, playing in dirt or mud, or pretend cooking in a mud kitchen are fun ways to create positive tactile experiences. To help your child become more aware of their body, try climbing over cushions, jumping on a trampoline, rolling up in a blanket like a burrito, or doing animal movements like bear and crab walks. For movement and balance, try swinging, rocking, or hopping on a hopscotch grid. Enhance sight and hearing by playing with musical toys, playing a listening game on walks (“What do you hear?”), making shadow puppets, or searching for colors around the house or outside.
  • Physical Skills: Take your child to the park to run, jump, climb, and play with balls. Have dance parties and listen to music together. To help develop fine motor skills, encourage activities like playing with age-appropriate small toys, building with blocks or Legos, drawing, or playing with clay or Play-Doh.

Simple Ideas to Make Play Easy and Fun:  

  • Spend small chunks of time, like 5 to 15 minutes, playing. Short, regular play sessions can be just as beneficial, and help build strong relationships and skills. You can play games like charades or Simon Says before bed, do card games, or tell silly stories during car rides or at dinner.  
  • Reduce distractions by turning off screens and creating a calm space, so you and your child can focus on playing.  
  • Try different activities and use various toys and materials like blocks, art supplies, dolls, or costumes. This helps your child choose what they enjoy and learn new skills through different types of play.  
  • Incorporate play into your daily routine: turn cleaning up into a treasure hunt, pretend your clothes are a superhero costume and see how quickly you can get dressed, or act out stories with pretend props and costumes before bed.  
  • Use what you already have at home—no need for expensive toys! Make forts with blankets, set up obstacle courses with pillows, go outside to find different nature items, or play “I Spy” to discover things around you.

When helping kids play at home, keep a few final tips in mind. Don’t worry about things being perfect—messy or busy play is still valuable and important! Focus on having fun together and building strong connections, rather than just getting things done or achieving something specific. Remember–all play is okay!

Author: Emilie Orozco, CCC-SLP, Clinical Supervisor at CI Pediatric Therapy Centers

About CI Pediatric Therapy Centers: For over 19 years, CI Pediatric Therapy Centers has been providing family-centered, strengths-based therapy to children of all abilities. CI makes therapy fun and functional with a focus on working hard, playing hard and celebrating daily wins at their multiple clinic locations throughout the state of Wisconsin. CI is honored to serve Wausau and the surrounding communities through comprehensive and collaborative speech, occupational, physical, feeding, and aquatic therapy. To find out more about CI and how they might be able to support your child’s development, visit their website. To get a window into all the fun they have supporting kids and their families, follow them on Instagram or Facebook (@citherapy).

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