![]() focus on strategies that develop the resilience of children and have positive impacts on their long-term social and emotional wellbeing.use play as a mechanism to begin conversations about the hopes that parents have for their relationships with children and increase agency in making positive change and.build parents’ capacities to engage in child-led play with their child.support families to identify realistic and sustainable opportunities for shared playtime.support child-led play and increase parents’ confidence in engaging in play.When working with families, practitioners can: As parents become more aware of the benefits of child-parent play, there is an opportunity to experience some agency in supporting their children’s mental health through shared play experiences. Parents engaging with their children in child-led play provide an ideal avenue for strengthening these relationships while promoting healthy child development. Strong parent-child relationships are an important protective factor for child mental health. This can create a space for practitioners to talk with parents about any concerns they may have relating to how their own challenges may be impacting upon their child. Often, through this practice, parents will begin to evaluate their current relationship with their child and the need to make time for them. Practitioners report that this prevents them from stepping into centred or authoritarian practice and establishes a parallel process, where parents focus on their child and practitioners are led by the needs of the parent. ![]() The practitioner’s ‘expertness’ is set aside during this process, and they can ask the parent about their hopes, strengths and concerns regarding their relationship with their child. When practitioners support parents in child-led play, they can begin to have rich conversations about the child’s individual preferences, strengths and needs. This practice in taking the child’s perspective can support parents to reflect on their child’s experiences and needs. When parents observe or join their children in play in this way, they are given a unique opportunity to see the world through their child’s eyes. It requires the parent to tune in to what their child is communicating, thinking and feeling without distraction. The decline in the time children and parents spend engaging in play can be explicitly linked to a rise in children’s mental health difficulties (Gray, 2011).Ĭhild-led play is an ideal way for parents to engage with their children. For other, less well-resourced families, finding regular time for play can be a challenge due to complexities in their home environment (Ginsberg, 2007). Hurried lifestyles are evident in more resourced families as they try to ‘fit it all in’ with children attending a range of structured adult-led activities. Families are living with multiple stressors that can negatively impact on time for shared play. Unfortunately, the time children are spending in play is reducing across all socioeconomic groups (Ginsberg, 2007 Whitebread, 2017). Furthermore, children whose parents regularly engage in play with them are less likely to develop mental health difficulties such as anxiety, depression, aggression, and sleep problems (Goldstein, 2012). Play is also an effective way for children to negotiate their own interests and place in their broader environment, increasing confidence and resilience (Brussoni et al., 2015 Fearn & Howard, 2011). The self-expression, connection with parents and positivity elicited from play contribute significantly to a sense of wellbeing and health and improve children’s quality of life (Goldstein, 2012). Children’s freedom to express themselves through play is fundamental to their cognitive, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing (Ginsburg, 2007).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |