Think back to your own childhood. For many of us growing up in South Africa (SA) and across the continent, playtime didn’t involve flashing tablets or expensive gadgets. It was the pure freedom of the outdoors, building worlds out of mud, chasing friends down the street, or the simple joy of competing with nothing but a handful of smooth river rocks.<\/p>\n
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Today marks the United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Play. First celebrated in 2024, this global initiative serves as a vital reminder that letting a child play is a fundamental part of every child’s learning, development, and well-being. It is a reminder that play is not a luxury, but a right that helps children build creativity, resilience, and essential life skills.<\/p>\n
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Yet, for millions of children from SA to communities across the African continent and beyond, factors like poverty, unsafe environments, and inequality limit the ability to simply be children. According to Megan Briede, Director of Programmes at Save the Children SA, play actually does become a luxury for many children due to critical safety and environmental factors. Many children are living in unsafe communities plagued by crime, violence, and unsafe infrastructure where the physical environment itself can cause harm. Consequently, parents restrict their children from roaming free or playing outside. Furthermore, poverty ensures that many communities completely lack safe areas, parks, playgrounds, or basic early childhood development centers, stripping children of access to toys and learning through play.<\/p>\n
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As a society, we often become heavily honed in on formal literacy and numeracy outcomes, focusing intensely on math, science, and language. This creates a dangerous trend where play is viewed as something that must come after formal learning, rather than as a form of learning itself. Briede warns that this is a mistake, as play is the absolute fundamental base of a child’s actual development. It is through play that children first learn language and communication in connection with others. They learn key problem-solving skills, creativity, social skills, and emotional regulation, such as learning how to deal with feelings of anger when navigating a game with another child. These are core, fundamental life skills required as children progress into adulthood.<\/p>\n
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The evolution of play across different economic strata also reveals deep pitfalls. In affluent neighborhoods where recreational parks exist, play has increasingly shifted toward digital platforms. This digital era has brought about highly isolated play where the game is completely created for the child, eliminating the need for them to be creative. Briede notes that allowing children to spend a significant amount of their day on digital platforms is linked to an increase in mental health challenges, including rising rates of loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Ideally, children need to engage face-to-face and spend time outside running and playing, which develops both their gross and fine motor skills.<\/p>\n
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For working parents struggling with safety concerns and limited time, Briede emphasises that unstructured, free play does not require money or expensive toys. Parents can protect and promote play by being actively visible and watchful outside, keeping an eye on their children’s safety while socializing with neighbors. Parents can also pass down traditional, non-expensive games which stimulate young children, who thrive on active parental engagement. Even basic daily activities can be turned into cognitive development tools. For instance, if a child is playing with rocks on the floor, a parent cooking nearby can actively engage by adding ideas into the play, commenting on size, colors, or counting the rocks to develop the child’s thinking, reasoning, and language.<\/p>\n
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Within the home, parents can lead active games, while organisations like Save the Children continue to lobby and challenge municipalities to build the safe public parks families desperately need.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36841,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"featured-post":[352,351,350],"class_list":["post-36840","lifestyle-ent","type-lifestyle-ent","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","featured-post-children","featured-post-kids","featured-post-play","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lifestyle-ent\/36840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lifestyle-ent"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lifestyle-ent"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"featured-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured-post?post=36840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}