Make PLAY your family heritage
Celebrate Heritage Day by creating a play-based legacy for your children. Explore the benefits of play and why it’s essential for their growth and well-being.
Hey South Africans, happy Michaelmas holiday! During this quick 10-day break, on Tuesday, 24 September, we celebrate Heritage Day (also known as Braai Day!). On this day, we celebrate heritage and culture—who we are, where we come from, and what we value.
The South African braai is something that unites all cultures in our country, a wonderful way of bringing people of diversity together—food, of course!
Heritage is defined as something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor; a legacy or inheritance.
Here is my challenge to parents this holiday: make PLAY with your children part of the legacy you leave them.
There is nothing else that can replace face-to-face time between parent and child. Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, talks about the decline of the play-based childhood. Safety concerns caused parents to curb children’s outdoor play, and the advent of smartphones and social media shifted childhood from play-based to phone-based.
One of the ways we can reintroduce play into children’s lives is for parents to make lots of time to play with their children.
Safety is a concern in many places, yes, so it makes sense to create safe spaces for your children. Venture out with them into the great outdoors and explore together.
In South Africa, we are not yet fully aware of the damage being done by children immersed in screens. It has become a matter of normalcy. For example, we often see a 3-year-old at a social event walking around with their nose pressed against a screen, choosing the phone instead of playing with peers around them.
We allow it to happen because “it’s the way kids are now.”
In this matter, let’s go against the way things are. Let’s be different.
And no, I don’t think it’s possible to have both. Parents get to shape the experience their children have. We can allow a phone-based childhood by putting a smartphone in their hands at age five, or we can normalize play-based childhood—exploring the outdoors and engaging in face-to-face conversations.
The Benefits of Play
Play has enormous benefits. In fact, children cannot thrive without it. Play offers:
- Physical benefits
- Emotional growth
- Cognitive development
- Social skills
- Creative opportunities
No amount of YouTube videos or online courses can replace the benefits of play in all its forms.
If we want to advocate for a play-based childhood, we must step up and facilitate it. This means:
- Playing with our children face-to-face as often as possible.
- Ensuring they have safe opportunities to play when we can’t be with them.
What is your opinion?
Can a child have a phone-based and play-based childhood? Or is it one or the other?
Play Ideas!
Here are some previous blog posts with ideas for games and things to play:
