Taking A Closer Look At The Importance Of Playgrounds And Play For Children All Throughout The United States
- By: Allison Plank
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Play of all types is hugely important here in the United States. After all, regular play helps to express creativity, as well as develop it in the first place. It also promotes problem solving on a more complex level, something that is pretty much essential for children to learn – and the earlier they learn it, the better. Of course, physical play in particular is important, especially when it comes to the development of fine motor skills and gross motor skills alike.
In fact, these gross and fine motor skills are essential for many aspects of life – but they must be developed before the age of six, at the very latest (and some experts are now even saying that the age of five is the cutoff for developing such skills. For many children, active and physical play is the way that this aspect of brain development occurs. Without it, many children are not likely to develop their fine and gross motor skills are fully as is possible. For many children, this can lead to lifelong delays and difficulties, though some children will struggle more than others do.
Much of this can be attributed to the growth of electronics in the world as we know it – and especially here in the United States. After all, children have access to more electronic devices than ever before, from TV to tablets to even phones of their very own. For many children, electronics have become a way of life, and the average child will spend as many as seven and a half hours on the use of electronics on a daily basis, with the average kid at or over the age of seven watching TV for as many as four and half hours over the course of the day.
Many parents are becoming concerned. In fact, more than half of them (around two thirds, to be just a little bit more precise) have noted a concern in how frequently their children are engaging with screens. But being technologically literate is a hugely important part of our lives as we know them, and something that nearly every child will likely need to know at some point in their lives.
At the end of the day, it’s all about striking a balance. While some amount of TV won’t likely hurt your child – and the same can be said for nay tablet game as well – it’s important to get them up and moving too. Fortunately, playgrounds provide the perfect place to do just that, and playgrounds are quite commonplace around the country. After all, the city of Chicago alone has more than 300 hundred playgrounds found within city limits. Playgrounds are now more complex and offer more to do than ever as well.
While old standbys like swing sets and their inevitable swing set replacement parts are still commonplace and widely popular, things like playground climbers and rock climbing hand holds have also become more widely utilized than ever before. Such devices allow children to participate in even more creative physical challenges and can be modified to meet the needs of children of many ages and physical abilities.
Of course, keeping any given playground in good physical shape is also important, and this is where things like swing set replacement parts become important. Swing set replacement parts and other such replacement parts can provide older playgrounds with new life. In addition to this, swing set replacement parts can also allow for the continued safety of the children who play there, as swings without swing set replacement parts can all too easily fall into disrepair over the course of time (and the longer they go unmaintained with the use of swing set replacement parts and the like).
At the end of the day, outdoor and active play is hugely important for the health of young children and older ones alike, both for physical health as well as for brain development, something that many people and many parents might not even realize.