Via various forms of play, young children are able to develop many skills at nursery, from communication to empathy development. The concept of play allows for this key progress within the playroom. Skills learnt from such early stages at nursery provide a child with the competency to engage effectively with others when they finally reach the first key stage of education – so that they may learn productively without the hindrance of underdeveloped communication skills.
Empathy Within The Playroom
While it may seem a child is merely playing with others in the playroom, a more complex transfer of skills is taking place. The ability to experience empathy is both emotional and cognitive, while children begin their journey of developing empathy by reflecting the empathy of others. This demonstrates the importance of children feeling valued at nursery so they can begin this copying process of understanding the concept of empathy.
Without the focus on play that nursery provides a child’s empathetic understanding is not explored. At Little Acorns, we also encourage empathetic social interactions by promoting positive behaviour.
Problem-Solving Within The Play Area
In terms of social skills learnt by problem-solving within the play area, children make decisions such as whose turn it is to go first within a game created. Without the realms of nursery and unstructured yet supervised play, children forgo the opportunity to attempt a trial-and-error based method of problem-solving, which effectively aids the development of social skills. Identifying and attempting to define the problem within the confines of play allows children to explore this trial-and-error method outside of real-life situations – to create a fictional sphere in which key problem-solving can be transferred into real social situations.
Conflict Resolution At The Nursery
Conflict resolution is taught at nursery via play, and the practice by which this is achieved is via ‘Theory of mind’ which typically develops aged 4-5, however the skills to reach this level should flourish a little earlier around aged 2-3. Nursery aids this by encouraging pretend games to understand the consequences of certain emotional outlooks. The concept of learning to share different toys rather than taking possession of such toys evokes conflict resolution skills in the playroom, and the consequences of upsetting another child allow for the decision to share to be made which as a result causes the early onset of conflict resolution.
See How Play Inspires Social Skills At Little Acorns Nursery
This blog has demonstrated the significance play within a nursery has upon a child’s social skills development via the decision-making, iit allows for a practise type manner of societal norms to be explored thoroughly and freely. At Little Acorns we pride ourselves upon inspiring natural curiosity amongst the children in our care, and the early development of social skills to create the building blocks of their characters and morals as they grow. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information on the types of play we encourage to provide your child with the best start in life.