How Toys Help Develop Children’s Social Skills
The development of every child is a complicated process that is influenced by myriad factors, all to varying degrees. One important aspect of their development is the building of their social skills, which includes their ability to communicate, cooperate, and empathize with other people.
Although many factors can contribute to a child’s development, one that has been well-researched and found to have a strong effect on development is play. Playing is not merely something that children do to occupy their time and entertain themselves. When playing with toys, they are using their minds to assign roles to the items and imagine the interactions between them, deepening their understanding of these things as they go.
This article explores the benefits of toys on children’s social development in more depth.
Developing empathy
Empathy refers to our ability to understand how another person is feeling, but we do not acquire this ability only from the direct experience of causing feelings in others. Children are able to enhance their empathy using toys, especially character-based ones like dolls or Sylvanian families. Playing with these things requires them to imagine thoughts, feelings, needs and wants for the characters. Not only do they need to understand these feelings, but they can experiment with how those feelings change or what actions they prompt in different situations. Doing this can make them better at it in real life, too.
Exercising their imagination
Using their imagination is also a beneficial thing for children to do because it helps them to develop their creativity and their ability to solve problems. More imaginative play, which includes not only toys but activities such as building forts and dressing up too, has been linked to enhanced artistic abilities and a greater likelihood of continuing to pursue artistic endeavors into adulthood.
Practicing social interactions
Of course, not all toys need to be played with alone. This means that they can also serve as useful facilitators of communication and interactions with other children. Playing with others can help children develop their skill at negotiating with others, communicating with them, and working together towards a common goal.
Increasing confidence
Multiplayer toys like board games and building sets encourage interaction between children, and this will help with their confidence, but they can also build their confidence up by playing with toys that give them some sense of achieving a goal. For example, completing a building set is a clear sign that their spatial reasoning skills are getting better, giving them more confidence in their abilities and socially too.
Learning social rules
Skills like waiting for your turn and following rules require cultivation, and this can be achieved through play with toys such as board games. Sharing is another good skill to practice through play, and there are plenty of toys that encourage cooperation.
Conclusion
Playing with toys has many benefits for children, especially when it comes to their social development. It helps equip them with valuable skills that they will need to navigate the world as they grow up, including empathy, confidence, and the ability to cooperate with others. There is no single best type of toy for children’s social development, as many kinds of play can be beneficial in different ways.
