Indoor vs Outdoor Play: Finding the Perfect Balance for Your Child

Did you know that play is the language of your kids?

It's how they explore and interact with the world around them while learning important skills like communication, problem-solving, and self-regulation.

In fact, a famous psychologist named Piaget studied children's playing behaviour and found that play is a powerful tool for understanding their role in the world and can even aid in their cognitive growth.

As parents, it's important to encourage both indoor and outdoor play for your kids.

While outdoor play is generally preferred by caregivers as it provides more space for physical activities and helps with the physical and mental development of children, indoor play can also be beneficial.

However, due to COVID, more children have been engaging in indoor play lately. Although indoor play is still a great option, it's important to remember that outdoor play is crucial for maintaining your kids' health.?

In this blog, let's find out the advantages and challenges both types come with.

Outdoor games

As parents, we all want what's best for our children, and outdoor play is a crucial aspect of their physical and mental development.

Playing outside provides numerous benefits, such as more space for our kids to engage in activities like running, throwing, and jumping, which aid in growth and development. It's especially beneficial for babies and toddlers, as it allows them to explore the world around them and become more comfortable with new settings. Outdoor play also has mental health benefits, as it provides an excellent way to release pent-up energy and cope with restlessness, helping our children feel relaxed and calm.

Furthermore, playing outside provides a sense of efficacy, which helps our children feel more confident about themselves and their abilities. It also provides a unique opportunity for socializing with others, which can help our children learn how to make friends, get along with others, and improve their communication and collaborative problem-solving skills. By playing outside, our children can benefit from greater social competence.

Outdoor play comes with many challenges

However, we understand that there are challenges and obstacles that we, as parents, must keep in mind. With buildings, concrete roads, parking lots, and construction sites everywhere, we may feel that letting our kids play outside is dangerous as there are no safe, open spaces. We may also be concerned about instances of dangerous acts against children and not want to leave our children outside to play without proper knowledge of stranger danger. Busy schedules and hectic school curriculums may also leave little time for us to take our children outside and supervise their play. Post-COVID, many children and caregivers have become less comfortable being outdoors and may even feel unsafe doing so.

These could be reasons why we see an increase in indoor play. However, is indoor play a good substitute? What could be the implications of this change and its impact on child growth and development??

Indoor Games

Indoor play has come a long way from being considered a less active form of play. With the evolution of indoor playgrounds, play areas, games, and apps, it provides many of the same opportunities as outdoor play.

As parents, we understand the importance of play in our children's lives and want to provide them with the best opportunities to grow and develop.

One of the advantages of indoor play is that it allows us to integrate playtime into our busy schedules in a safer environment. Indoor play areas have become quite common and provide a great opportunity for children to socialize and develop skills like physical development, communication, critical thinking, and more. It also encourages creativity and imagination in children, as they have access to a variety of toys and tools to support their play.

Indoor play also provides an opportunity for both fine and gross motor development. Children can engage in many actions such as jumping, crawling, running, climbing, pointing, picking, arranging things, etc. Indoor games not only include indoor play areas and gyms, but also games such as puzzles, arts and crafts, rubik’s cube, wii games, etc. These games promote critical thinking, problem-solving, exercise, language and comprehension, spatial reasoning, etc. Doing these activities with caregivers may also provide opportunities for bonding and trust-building.

Indoor play comes with many challenges

Indoor activities via learning and game apps provide an opportunity for intellectual growth as well. However, indoor play also has its own set of challenges.

Indoor play areas are curated and remove many of the unpredictable obstacles/challenges in the real world. While this may be much safer, it doesn't prepare children to learn how to cope with these obstacles whenever they are outside. This may require caregivers to take extra caution and provide supervision whenever an opportunity for outdoor play arises.

Parents need to strike a balance between indoor and outdoor play and provide opportunities for children to develop in both environments. By doing so, children can reap the benefits of both indoor and outdoor play and develop holistically. We should also be mindful that indoor play provides no opportunity for connecting with the environment and may cause children to be disconnected from their natural surroundings.

Socializing may also be a challenge if indoor play areas are limited to one’s own house. Playtime is vital for children to make friends and find peers around them. The opportunity to do the same increases by a large amount if children simply don’t leave the house.

In conclusion, as parents, we should consider indoor play as an excellent opportunity for our children to grow and develop. We should also be mindful of the challenges and ensure that we strike a balance between indoor and outdoor play to provide our children with the best opportunities to develop holistically.

?