Play And Childrens Development Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Play And Childrens Development - Research Paper Example In a study that measured the rate of video game playing by students compared to their academic performance, video gaming or passive gaming was found to have negative effects on the cognitive ability of students. The study reported decreasing interest in academic work due to its strong addictive nature that ties the students’ mind to such video gaming. According to this study, teachers and policy makers in education have constantly voiced their concerns regarding the detrimental effects of video passive gaming and TV watching. The study found that video gaming was negatively correlated to academic performance among college students, with the variation being much higher in male students compared to females. This may be explained by the time displacement hypothesis where media consumption takes away most of time that would be used in the intellectually challenging academic activities. Shelving such intellectual challenging activities thus leads to lower cognitive development amon g such constant passive game players, resulting to lowered cognitive development. Thus as Kantor (259) asserts, physical or active play would lead to improvement in cognitive development due to the mental activities and body systems involved, all which work to improve healthy development of an individual. Russel and Newton (295) relate passive gaming to the acute increase in obesity cases among teenagers today. According to this study, child obesity increases due to lack of enough time for physical activities, and increase in passive gaming and watching screen content.TV watching and passive gaming are rapidly displacing children physical activities with more teenagers showing increased preference to passive gaming over physical activities. The... The self-efficacy of children becomes critical in social development. Increasing children efficacy can be enhanced through increased self-confidence, which is attained when children learn to do things alone. Independence can be developed by ensuring children plan their own games and are supported and not guided in such unstructured games, which improve a child’s efficacy. Structured games will, therefore, reduce the learning process in a child compared to unstructured games, which reduces their self-efficacy, and limits their social development. Some of the plays that children can use freely to express themselves and enhance development are drawing, collages, using paper mache and block games where children arrange blocks to form different patterns. Playing is not only beneficial in developing physical health and abilities but has a great impact on social and psychological attributes in children. To ensure the benefits of physical play among children for both psychological and physical health, child play should not be directed. Allowing children to design their games and construct meanings from such games leads to creativity and self-drive, which is critical in ensuring cognitive development in children. Therefore, active play in children has to be encouraged and facilitated in any way possible to avoid health complications in obesity and other negative behaviors related to passive gaming. Such an approach in a child’s play promotes major psychological, social and physical benefits involved in physical gaming.