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Home » Exercise Programs » Natures Classroom: Saving what we love part II: The power of play – Pueblo Chieftain

David Anthony Martin| The Pueblo Chieftain

This is the thirty-seventh in a series of articles from the staff of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center that will provide resources, ideas, and suggestions for families during the COVID-19 pandemic.Watch for future articles with outdoor activity ideas for students and families. The public can help the nonprofit NWDC get through this challenging time by making a donation athttps://hikeandlearn.org/donate-covid-19-pandemic-relief/. Join NWDC for guided hikes and other exciting nature programs listed here:https://hikeandlearn.org/programs-and-events/.

Part One of this Saving What We Love series spoke to the importance of the frontal lobes development in childhood and its role in memory and reward, planning and drive, decision making, and self-discipline, and it also focused onmirror neuronsas one of the ways to create those vital connections. Two more ways to do this are throughinteractive playand theseeking system.

Interactive play, especiallyrough-and-tumbleplay, enhances the emotion-regulating functions in the frontal lobes and helps children better manage their feelings. The termrough-and-tumble-playrefers to activities where children are able to engage in social play that often includes physical contact, emotions, stories, and vigorous activities (jumping, swinging, chasing, and play-fighting). This type of spontaneous play is very exciting and fun for children, especially in an era when safe spaces and opportunities for such play are increasingly limited. The camps and programs provided by Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center have a healthy amount of gameplay and free-play promotive of social engagement, body development, social skills, and problem-solving skills. Interactive play contains moments of competition and cooperation, as well as self-reflection and self-correction as children learn to adjust to change, assess how playmates respond to changes, develop skills for showing care and concern, and figure out how to express themselves and their ideas.

A healthy sense of competition enhances a childs self-esteem, and the basics of cooperation include listening to others, seeing from anothers perspective, taking turns, sharing, and assisting others, all of which develop the skills needed for effective teamwork and the skills needed to assert and defend ones self, position, and ideas. These skills are vital to a childs success in life, not only amongst peers, family, school, and sports activities in childhood, but also later as they move into the work force or participate in social, municipal, fraternal, martial, or governmental organizations. These skills also help them fulfill their own goals and destiny through projects, home life, innovative business or social spheres, and ones pursuit of happiness in general.

Experienced camp counselors ensure that play areas remain safe and that the children engage safely, help children adjust rules to guide play, and create, foster, and encourage play-spaces and play to be social activities where cohesiveness, inclusivity, cooperation, negotiation, and acceptance are respected values and where positivity and creativity are revered. This promotes positive emotional bonds, and teaches social-emotional and cognitive skills, problem-solving, self-control, and appropriate risk taking.

Many of the games and activities of NWDC camps and programs encourage these connections and frontal lobe developmenteverything from free play where children devise their own games or role-playing scenarios, to the wide variety of games employed by counselors, to learning within the classroom and academic modules of the day.

Interactive play, while seemingly simple fun, goes a long way toward helping a child learn to plan and learn how to engage in goal-directed behavior. Although we all most likely need to play more, it is especially important for children in their early years to have these experiences and set up the initial connections between these parts of the brain and to encourage them to maintain these connections with energy and frequency throughout life. For those of us already grown up, it is important to remember that we too must maintain, exercise, and promote our own vital frontal lobe connections through interactive play and social engagement. Challenging times when social interaction must be limited due to social distancing, whether voluntary, necessary, or mandatory, can call for increased interaction via virtual gatherings, check-ins, holidays, or even interactive online games that include social or possibly role-playing elements.

A lifelong outdoorsman, Ranger Pine has been an environmental educator at NWDC's Mountain Campus for the last decade. He is the founder of Middle Creek Publishing, and his passion is connecting people of all ages to Nature. He can be reached via email atearthstudies@hikeandlearn.org.

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Natures Classroom: Saving what we love part II: The power of play - Pueblo Chieftain

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Home » Exercise Programs » Natures Classroom: Saving what we love part II: The power of play – Pueblo Chieftain