The clock is counting down the last weeks of summer. Already, back-to-school sales have begun. It seems like they started in June, actually. It’s almost time to start preschool, school, and college.
In the midst of the flurry of notebook-buying and debates over brands of colored pencils, there is a deeper debate about back-to-school. Especially in the preschool and early elementary grades, it’s a debate about how children should best spend their time.
Play is formative in so many ways. When small children learn how to play alone, they learn how to use their imagination to keep themselves entertained. They become self-reliant in one of the most important ways you can be self-reliant: they rely on their own brains to come up with their own entertainment. A lot of adults have trouble doing that. We get so used to having entertainment available to us in the form of media that we forget how to amuse ourselves.
Playing with others is also important. Some time in your child’s third or fourth year, he will begin to play with others. The social interactions that children engage in may be very challenging to them at first. They struggle to share and to create a play scenario together. Eventually, kids learn how to create elaborate play scenarios with rules and social norms that rival any real adult world.
Preschoolers are keen to explore the world with their senses and through trial and error. Through play, they test out their own theories about physics and animal behavior and all sorts of other questions, if we allow them to do so.
This is what children do, and this is what children need to do. When you’re looking for a preschool, make sure that it includes ample unstructured play time. It’s not just play. It’s the most important activity that your child can do to build his brain.