Here at St. Andrews International School Sukhumvit S107, we view it as our responsibility to mould your children into holistic and successful individuals.

It’s all part of our school’s holistic learning system, which covers academics, extracurricular activities, and even playtime.

Curiously, the power of play is such that it promotes the emotional and social development of St. Andrews children. They’re not just time-killers or stress-relievers, especially when it comes to our very young wards at the start of their childhood.

How Playtime Helps Develop St. Andrews Sukhumvit Children Socially and Emotionally

Recreational activities are effective in helping children attain maturity. In that way, once they face the harsh realities of life, they won’t have to rely on YouTube guides to help them with “adulting.” Instead, they will have developed the emotional maturity to handle various challenges and adversities on their own.

Parents do not discourage children from playing! Here in St. Andrews, our highly competent educators are well aware that playing helps teach children individualism and self-dependency as part of a holistic approach to learning.

It feels natural for a child to play because it is, in fact, part of their development. It also helps their mental health because it makes them feel happy, carefree, and content.

It’s also a perfectly enjoyable and natural way for them to keep themselves active with exercise for the sake of their physical health. The dopamine hit they receive from playing is their body encouraging them to do more of it.

Contrary to popular belief, children’s recreation also helps prepare our primary and secondary school children for their future university endeavours, up until including their adult careers as part of the national or global workforce.

Why is Play Important to Your Children’s Future Development?

Children love to play. They have a natural knack for playing. While kittens engage in play-fighting to sharpen their senses and teach themselves instinctually how to hunt, human children use playtime to learn risk vs. reward and to better socialise with others.

Play improves the emotional, social, physical, and cognitive well-being of children and prepubescent young people.

Just like athletes do endless practice drills to perform optimally in the field or the ring, children use playtime as their practice drills for life and puberty. Children use play to learn more about the world and themselves.

“Play isn’t just about amusing yourself. It is instead about learning to experiment, test boundaries, and take risks.” (Teacher Quote)

Playing teaches them life skills depending on the type of play that’s being done, whether it’s Hide and Seek, hopscotch, or something involving hand-and-eye coordination.

Various unstructured play opportunities are available to children from infancy to their teenage years. These play opportunities help children with their mental and physical well-being and help them learn life skills independently.

If they have the physical talent, they might even “graduate” to doing sports as their playtime extracurricular activity of choice.

Is There a Right or Wrong Way to Go About Playing?

Not necessarily. A child can go about freely chosen play to get started with the recreational aspect of their home and school learning.

Freely chosen play is when the child decides and controls how he plays by following his interests, imagination, and instincts. From here on, the child takes the lead. Having the child choose how he plays instinctually is the way to go.

After all, this structure-free play isn’t led by adults by design. Playing teaches children the skills they need to become contributing members of society as well as for relationships, work, and study. They include the following:

• Curiosity

• Resilience

• Self-esteem

• Social skills

• Independence

• Self-confidence

• Problem-solving

• Social interaction

• Coping with challenges

They should freely choose how to play among themselves. They may also choose to play on their own using toys or their imagination. Girls can have tea parties or brush the hair of their dolls. Boys can play with their action figures. Or the other way around. There’s really no prescribed play activity for any child—each one is given the freedom to decide.

Or vice-versa since the culture has shifted from having a gender binary on how a child plays. There’s no right or wrong way for them to play to improve their mental and physical wellbeing.

Children Developing Physical and Mental Health Through Play

Our St. Andrews teachers follow a holistic education approach that covers recreational time and playtime. Encouraging play among children is our way of helping them learn independence and dependence on others at the same time.

They can also exercise theirbody and physical limits while bolstering their social and emotional skills at the same time. Teaching them games with rules also helps them learn how to play by the rules, which gives them more structure to their approach to life.

Physical play for children—which includes riding a bike, skipping, running, and other activities—can help them develop the following skills:

• Agility

• Balance

• Coordination

• Good physical fitness

Playing can even assist children in learning various social skills. They can listen, pay attention, and share their experiences with their playmates. Playtime helps the child:

• Learn self-expression

• Develop self-discipline

• Explore their feelings and emotions

• Work out the emotional aspects of their life

Most importantly, playing and playtime are fun. They induce relaxation in children, lowering their stress levels and increasing their happiness. As the famous movie quote goes, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”

It’s hard to define what “fun” is in an objective way since it’s a purely subjective concept, but having fun while playing serves as an incentive for children to keep doing it.

What are the Parents’ Roles in Encouraging Children to Play?

As a parent, you want your children to learn life skills by playing, particularly when it comes to calculated risks, making friends, cooperating with others, learning teamwork, and becoming a leader in their own life.

This then leads to the development of more well-rounded individuals who serve as our school’s proof of concept for the effectiveness of holistic learning.

In turn, parents should be encouraging their offspring from birth to schooling to “extend” themselves. They should teach them basic skills along with their play-based self-discovered skills, such as:

• Sports

• Swimming

• Road safety

• Board games

• Riding a bicycle

The more activities you introduce children to, the more they can apply what they’ve learned from playing to other pursuits, some of which might tickle their fancy or interest them.

Parents should explain to their kids to learn from mistakes, believe in themselves, and try again until they succeed. Help them understand boundaries and their own limits.

Summary

We at St. Andrews believe in the importance of helping children succeed in their current and future endeavours by opening their eyes to their capabilities. This is done through proper recreation and application of what they’ve learned in academics and extracurricular activities.

St. Andrews International School Sukhumvit S107 is part of the Cognita School Group. Cognita is a worldwide institution that owns and operates schools in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and beyond.

If you want to learn more about St. Andrews Sukhumvit, just fill out our online form to book a school tour. You may also watch our school’s personalised interactive virtual campus tour to learn more about this esteemed international school in Bangkok.