Personal Response to Play and Social Interaction in Middle childhood

Personal Response to Play and Social Interaction in Middle childhood

The research on Play and Social Interaction in Middle childhood by both Doris Bergen and Doris Pronin Fomberg indicates that play is vital in achieving the required optimum development of children, especially during their middle childhood years. The author says that it is unfortunate that play has been minimally addressed despite the existence of abundant research showing that it supports emotional, social, physical and cognitive developments in young children. The authors indicate that, in the ages of twelve it is when most adults elaborate and give joyous accounts and many believe it is at that time when they developed hobbies, social skills, and career decisions all which dictate their adult life experiences. However, signs are not good nowadays, considering children’s playtime is shrinking either at home and in school by being lost to other activities such as music and dance, among other activities with defined rules. Thus, the authors feel that there is a need for play in middle school to be reemphasized by educators, especially those who understand its importance in facilitating higher cognitive processing, creativity, emotional regulation, and facilitating skilled interaction..

From the authors’ assessment on play in middle school, it is true to say that for a children’s activity referred to as play; it should be self-organized and voluntary. Therefore, abolition of the standards in activities where children choose what to do on their own by replacing that with adult regulations, the activity ceases from being called play to work. With regard to that, when objects are involved in plays, a good play is defined as where one should not be looking at what they can do to the object, but what one can do with it. During the middle school lives of children, it is essential that play should be employed in various ways such as practice playing where children repeat activities to increase their levels of skills. Also, it can be used for pretense, during games with rules, as well as during construction play activities because it develops the ability to deal with emotions, social and cognitive issues, and at the same time, increasing physical skills.

During my time in middle school, I can testify that play was very important in mentoring my growth during middle school years. As I reflect in my adulthood, I can say that the various forms of play that I engaged in my middle school life have significantly contributed to my social and emotional competences, as well as fostering my cognitive development. For instance, having been engaged in role-playing scenarios involving threat in my middle school, it equipped me with social and emotional competencies which helped me gather the courage to deal with times when I was faced with aggression in school. Also, my playing during that time helped me increase my affiliation with other students around me by improving my negotiation skills. Also, play in my middle school helped me engage in various games, which improved my imagination and creativity levels as well as the development of social learning competencies to handle my fellow students.

I find it important that adults should facilitate play in the middle hood lives of children since it is very important for mentoring their social, cognitive, emotional, and physical intelligence development. Their engagement in the issue is crucial because some trends nowadays seem to prevent the development of play in the middle school lives of children. Therefore, they should act as facilitators and advocates to enhance its incorporation into middle childhood lives. The various ways that they can ensure there are no events that hinder quality play among all children’s middle school lives is by providing play resources, engaging in play interactions, supporting gender equality in plays, and assessing competencies of the game. In short, playing has proved to be important in middle school life, and therefore adults are the best suited to be its facilitators in the wake of events hindering its presence in the life of middle hood students.