Parents today either do not have the time or have simply forgotten the value of playing with their children. Children too find themselves being  dropped and picked from school to crèches to extra classes. Any free time that they have is spent watching TV or glued to a screen. In the quest to give their child the best of everything, parents often lose out on giving them the most precious gift of all—one-to-one time with their child. And one of the best ways to spend with your kids is to play with them.

Studies show that children spending at least an hour everyday playing in a natural and interactive way tend to have higher intelligence and stronger interpersonal skills than others. Play is considered the medium through which children express themselves. Parents can use play as an effective technique to communicate with their children and help them develop their verbal communication skills too. Creative and make-believe play helps children think out of the box and use common objects and toys in ways that are unique to them.

Play can be of several types and develops as the child grows.  Stages of play are as follows:

1. Solitary Play (0 – 2 yrs): Child usually plays on her own and is not interested to share toys or play with others.
2. Spectator Play (2 – 2.5 yrs): Child observes others and tries to imitate them.
3. Parallel Play (2.5yrs – 3 yrs): Children play side to side but in their own ways and do not interact, often seen in playgroups and nurseries.
4. Associate Play (3- 4 years): Children are playing the same game but will not interact with each other.
5. Cooperative Play (4 – 6 yrs): Children are interacting with each other and use their social communication skills to express themselves.

There are different ways play can be used for stimulating your child. The types of play are as follows:

• Toy/ Object play: This uses toys and objects like balls, dolls, toy vehicles, animals or other objects and use them meaningfully.
• Story telling: Telling stories using puppets is an effective technique that encourages the child’s creativity as they express the role of their puppets according to the story.
• Role play techniques: Enacting super heroes or other characters from stories has a positive effect on the child’s self-confidence and develops their public speaking skills. It is often used in nurseries and schools on their annual days.
• Creative arts technique: Children can express themselves using different mediums like drawing, colouring, painting, etc. This technique is widely used for non-verbal children. Art expression is a natural and spontaneous way of communication for children with emotional disturbances like anxiety, stress, learning disability, etc. Other art forms such as  dancing and working with clay are also used.
• Imagery techniques: This technique uses dolls and doll houses or farm animals in a farm set up or a traffic scene or other make-believe situations. The child plays creatively using his/her unique experiences and communicates about them.
• Communication games: These games can be tailor made to suit each child according their age and ability. Open-ended questions or situations can be used to initiate the child’s response to help them discover how they see their world from their own eyes; these might just be simple games of introducing themselves and saying what they like to do in their free time.
• Desensitisation methods: If the child is afraid of certain situations like darkness or crossing the road for instance, different stories and role plays can help simulate these situations and try to ease the child’s fear.
• Sports: Different sports can be taken up like swimming, football, basketball, cricket, etc . to encourage more outdoor time. These team sports are excellent in developing team skills, communication and group work.

If you are a parent, try to devote at least an hour playing with your child each day; besides sharpening your children’s cognitive and interpersonal abilities, it also acts as a great stress-buster for you. Spending time with your children helps you to think out of the box. So before you buy your child another gadget for a gift this season, think about how you can give him or her the gift of playtime with you.

The post This holiday season, gift your child the power of play appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Once upon a time in my childhood

If I were to describe my life in a single word, I’d choose the word story. My paternal grandma deserves the rich honour of opening the doors to the realm of imagination and creativity. As I think back to memories of childhood, she is the one who steals the spotlight. I sat besides her on sweltering summer afternoons, feeling the soft wrinkled folds of skin on her arm as I traveled to Lanka and Mithila, Dwaraka and Hastinapura. I flew the blue skies with Hanuman as he brought home the life-restoring herb from Sanjivini to revive a wounded Lakshmana when he fought the demon king, Ravana. I tasted every fruit that Shabari lovingly plucked and bit into in keen anticipation of Lord Rama’s visit.

It was Grandma who fostered in me a deep and abiding love of story—the art of storytelling, story writing and trading people’s stories with mine.

Story shapes our life.
Story gives meaning to our journey.
Story is the container for our destiny.

The wise old art of storytelling

To my pleasant surprise, it was storytelling that saved me as I applied for jobs in a new country, wondering if I’d have to settle for a humdrum desk job doing something just for a paycheck. A part-time position in a senior living community allowed me the bandwidth to create a space for seniors to share their life stories. For sixty minutes every week, a group of octogenarians and nonagenarians take centre stage in my group. As they tell stories of lives lived a long time ago, their faces light up and their eyes shine.

We live in a world where the elderly feel invisible a lot of the time. In our talk-text-and-message world of quick communication, their rambling narratives and measured pace, minuscule attention spans and confused memories have no place.

They find in this space a firm footing, as stories stored in long-term memories unfold, one sentence, one situation, one scene at a time. Stories of growing up dirt-poor during the Depression era; of crouching with pounding hearts in makeshift bomb shelters; of sending their men to war and committing to the war effort themselves; of evenings spent listening to the radio; of after-dinner dessert being nothing more ambitious than a dish of berries or peaches; of their moms labouring to get the perfect Shirley Temple curls, the rage of the time.

These are stories that remain evergreen in their minds—even as they struggle to remember whether they took their post-lunch pill or transferred the wet wash to the dryer.

Something delightful happens in the room when someone forgets a minor detail of the past. When Janice has trouble recalling the brand of butter that most families used back in the day, Virginia helps her out. That starts a discussion on butter churns, which leads to how they washed clothes using an old-fashioned wringer and the smell of sunshine on sheets. Each one helps connect the dots and feel connected to a world they all inhabited, which helps them connect to each other. These connections travel well beyond story time in the group.

For someone like me, a stranger to their culture and their world, it has been like living and breathing history. Now I know concentration camp and World war survivors; I know men who fought in these wars; I know women who raised police officers and fire-fighters. As 12 to 15 people become inspiring, heroic characters in their retellings, I watch history come alive.

It is a rich emotional experience, this sharing of stories. As they tell me tales of jukeboxes and ice cream fountains, I share stories of growing up in India, of customs and rituals that shaped my life, of rural and urban life that harmonise the reality of the haves and have-nots.

How sharing tales help?

This time of shared life stories has multiple benefits that go far beyond the pleasure of community and connection.

Transmit life lessons to the younger generations

80 plus years of living brings with it rich life lessons. Although the world of these seniors was significantly different from the one we inhabit, the themes and threads that run through life are always the same: the desire for happiness, a meaningful vocation, more connected relationships and less stress. Having travelled the path, elders have much wisdom to share on how to navigate life’s rocky terrain.

Mental health benefits

Storytelling is known to improve memory function in seniors. Recall, narration and connecting the dots strengthen areas of the brain which may otherwise atrophy. Added to this is the benefit of emotional nurturing as seniors feel a sense of belonging, coming from a world of challenges and pleasures they all shared.

Social and emotional connections

When seniors move into the community, they often feel displaced from homes and neighbourhoods they have known and loved. My group is a safe way for them to ease the loneliness of the transition as they find and form new friendships with others who are in similar shoes.

Connection to a common world

At a time when they can barely remember where they placed their walker or how to get to a certain room to attend a programme, sharing stories of a world they remember helps them feel rooted. It was a time when they had real roles in life as mothers, wives, teachers and nurses and it strengthens them to be reminded of a purposeful existence.

The opportunity for a life review

In reviewing their lives from today’s perspective, many have had the opportunity to understand mistakes made and choices that led them down roads they may not have chosen to travel. It is a fresh opportunity to revisit some unpleasant stories and give them pleasant endings. Beginnings and endings define the chapter of life. As we sit around a table and tell stories, we have the opportunity to create new beginnings and better endings.

Growing old can be awfully lonely. Storytelling helps seniors know that their life matters and gives you time to spend with your loved ones. These last days will not come again. So by reliving old tales and memories, you can make sure that the seniors don’t waste them by worrying.

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