Category: Education

I consider myself one of the lucky people who experienced a mainly stress-free childhood. Afternoons were filled with valuable fun times spent with friends. After school and (a little bit of) homework, we’d ride our bicycles to the park, play on the slides and swings, climb trees, bake mud cakes, build imaginary castles in the sandpit, try to whistle like different birds, sing songs and literally smell the roses. Our parents allowed us to be bored and figure things out for ourselves. Home time was determined either by hunger pangs or the setting sun, whichever came first. And on the odd occasion, if you happened to hear the much-loved ice cream truck’s infamous tune and chase after it, there was dessert before supper. Life was good!

How things have changed…

Currently, kids are subjected to various daily stressors: crammed schedules, unrealistic academic demands, very little free time, multiple adult-directed extracurricular activities, emotional stress, limited exploration opportunities, to name but a few. As a result, our children’s stress levels are rising faster than inflation. We are finding that our kids are becoming more prone to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. That is just not right!

So, what can we do to turn back the hands of time and prevent children from becoming sad, depressed, anxious and eventually over-medicated human beings?

LET THEM PLAY… LET THEM PLAY… LET THEM PLAY!

Our children need to experience what we were privileged enough to experience: contact with the tangible, magnificent world out there! Give them the opportunity to play, explore and learn through their senses. Engaging with their environments and thus experiencing life through sensory input results in neural pathways being formed… and before you know it, learning is taking place. When we learn through our senses, we use a bottom-up approach: input starts on a subconscious level and only relevant input gets registered on a conscious level. We are not consciously aware of each and every sensory input our nervous system receives. If we were, I believe we might all be diagnosed with concentration difficulties and having meltdowns might be a daily occurrence for most.

Even more importantly, play is a great source of happiness.
And who does not want to be happy?!?

Ideally, kids should “figure things out” for themselves and use their vivid, unique imaginations to come up with games to play. But to get the ball rolling, a few suggestions aimed at each of the 7 senses:

• Movement
  – slide down a hill in a cardboard box
  – ride a bicycle
  – push your friend around in a wheelbarrow
• Proprioception
  – play knee-soccer
  – tug-of-war
  – wheelbarrow walking
• Tactile
  – collect different flowers, feathers, leaves and make bookmarks
  – build sandcastles
  – make mud-cakes
• Visual
  – play “I spy with my little eye”
  – at night, go outside and look at the stars (with mom and dad)
  – have a treasure hunt
• Auditory
  – play “the telephone game” or “Chinese whispers”
  – try to imitate bird sounds
  – identify sounds in nature
• Smell
  – make playdough with different scents
  – help mom or dad with cooking
  – let kids choose their own shampoo in a shop
• Taste
  – suck on different flavour ice lollies
  – bake cupcakes
  – have a blindfolded tasting competition

When our children get to play… not on tablets and watching tv, but REAL play like we used to do…  they get the opportunity to regulate their sensory systems and in turn their reactions to stimuli.   This is where they learn to listen to their bodies, take a break when less input is needed, and seek input opportunities when their systems need more.

A happy balanced sensory system will in turn result in a happy, balanced little human being.
Life can be good again!

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Play is the universal language of all children. Play is essential to human and brain development, creativity and it is the foundation to all learning in life. All areas of a child’s growth – social, emotional, cognitive and physical –  are influenced by play. Through sensory play, children learn:

1. To make sense of the world around them, and
2. How to regulate their emotions when facing challenges.

From the time that a baby is born, its body and brain are designed to discover the world through the senses. Think of that child playing in the sandpit, not only getting the sand into every part of his body but eating it too. Think of the horror on the mom’s face! Now, think about how much that child is learning through using all his senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching the sand. Think of all the ways that moving through the sand is leading to the development of emotions, language, gross- and fine motor skills.

Sensory play is important for all children, not only those who have sensory processing difficulties. Sensory play is not only about touch. It is also about using the other senses. Add colour or texture to water, paint and sand, and you have introduced a different experience for the child during play. The opportunity to describe what one sees, feels or tastes helps with the development of language and feelings of “likes and dislikes”. It helps them to think of the world around them in a different way. Water is not only wet, but it is warm or cold, it is ice, it is slippery when bubbles are added and it can be rough like waves are at the beach.

Sensory play should involve the space around the child, encourage the child to move while using the senses. Movement allows for children to explore their world without restriction. As adults we may not find any interest in small space between our couches, but for a child that is a universe waiting to be discovered, without having any preconceived ideas about what lays ahead for him.

It is also fascinating to watch how children discover ways to play when there are no technological devices available.  One of my fondest memories of my older children while visiting in the Karoo, was watching them sulk for about 10 minutes when they realised there were no internet services in the middle of the beautiful farm we were on. The next thing, they had the younger kids playing in the dry river bed, making up new games as they went along and looking for any branch, stone or whatever else they could find to play with. The smiles on their faces at the end of the day were priceless.

All aspects of a child’s daily life should allow for the opportunity to learn from the senses, whether it is at feeding time, dressing, bathing or free play.  Our lives are described by the memories that we have, based on how we reacted to what we saw, heard, tasted, smelled and touched. We live in a world where technology is “king” and where we want to protect our children from getting hurt or dirty, but the reality is that we are doing more harm than good by discouraging them from learning from experience. Our sensory likes and dislikes should not be imposed on our own children or those that we teach. As adults, we too would benefit from pure and simple sensory play.

When last have you done so?

ALSO READ HOW LESS PLAY LEADS TO INCREASED ANXIETY IN CHILDREN
Valerie Strauss, a columnist for the Washington Post, brought attention to a speech about how schools are putting play aside in order to focus on more cognitive and desktop activities leading to more anxious and overwhelmed children in the foundation years of schooling. It states how important hands-on learning is for the development of the child. (Read it here).

Discover your sensory wiring by completing your Sensory Matrix™.