From personal experience this is a fantastic time, ignoring the sleepless nights of course.  Child development play brings together ideas and creativity, relationships, physical co-ordination, feelings and helps your child to use what he knows and understand about the world and the people around him.  This also forms the basis for developing the parent-child bond, which in itself is one of the most rewarding experiences for a parent.

When my youngest was born I had such fantastic plans for what I was going to do with him and get for him. It wasn’t long before I started planning what great toys I could buy for us, I mean him (oops).  The biggest problem from my point of view was how long it would take for him to grow in order to be able to get any use from them, I had some fantastic ‘boys toys’ lined up.  Then it occurred to me, I needed stuff to keep him occupied, not me.  After all, I was more than occupied looking after him!

While I was spending many an hour trawling the Internet for ideas I realised there was some really good stuff out there to help achieve my goals, if you had the patience to look.  I recall the first item I bought him was a cloth multi-coloured octopus.  Not sure I ever saw any of that species on the Discovery Channel though.

Anyway, this octopus had different types or textures of material on each of its legs, presumably to promote some form of tactile development.  That octopus and my son soon become inseparable, mainly one of its legs from his mouth.  As he got older we progressed on to the obligatory ‘teddy’, although in his case it was a Dalmatian dog. He still has it to this day, some 11 years later, although he will deny all knowledge if ever challenged about it

Over a period of time we collected numerous child development toys, each serving a dual purpose, firstly to provide fun for him and then secondly to promote one of the aspects of his development.  Not all this early stage revolved around toys.  We devised numerous little ‘games’ to work with him, for example to promote his motor development through copying of movement or similar imitation games. It was about the time when he started to become more mobile and got his exploration bug, that he had his first climbing frame bought for him.  Every now and then we would find him curled up asleep under it, with all manner of toys stuffed in there.  Already building his own little fortress!

This was a great little addition to his toys, fun for him whilst giving me an opportunity to be involved playing in his little fort.  Before long he was trying to build his own little fort with his start lego set.  This provided plenty of opportunity for him to express himself and practice his throwing arm!

We soon progressed on to the messy phase, purchasing him a big box of crayons and water based paints and lots of paper.  This allowed him to develop his creative side, although this often descended back into practicing his throwing.  A little tip there, always make sure that painting is done in an easily cleaned room.

We have always encouraged him to socialise and mix with other children.  From a very early age he was taken to various mother and baby, toddler and pre-school groups.  This has proved to be one of the most important lessons learned as he has now progressed to being an emotionally secure individual who gets on well in groups of his peers.

So, that was his first few years and as I said earlier, a fantastic time and lots of opportunities for you to help your child develop through play.  This is also a very important time for both parent and child where a close bond can form and to this day this bond remains strong, although now being a near teen it is often tested.

I hope that this article has provided you with some ideas for your child development play and hopefully provided some light relief.

Here are some additional articles that may be of interest.

• why play is important to a child’s development – child development play brings together ideas and creativity, relationships, physical co-ordination, feelings and helps your child to use what he knows and understand about the world and the people around him. during play, he… …
• Simon Says, Mother May I? and Read Light, Green Light … – Categories. Child Development, Play Tips. Tags. family, Games, playground You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. …
• Constructive Marketing: Unilever Brand Persil Embraces Play | Max … – UK-based Persil, a Unilever brand, emphasizes the importance of childhood play. Childhood as we know it is over and children of future generations could enter adulthood lacking vital life and social skills because of a lack of free’ play, according to a study released by Persil. The global report, which marks the launch of Persil’s Every Child Has The Right campaign, was conducted in conjunction with leading experts in youth development and highlights the erosion of childhood.

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