In the hurly burly of bringing up children, and the very onerous responsibilities that go with the job, it is perhaps only expected that many parents tend to forget to play with their child.
A recently conducted survey found that a significant proportion of parents have forgotten how to play with their children and an even greater proportion admit to finding kids’ games and activities boring or dull.
But playing with your child doesn’t have to be ‘dull’. There are new kinds of toys and play parks available for you to have fun. Maybe you could get your child interested in micro scooters, these are all the rage at the moment and a few parks have special areas to use them.
There is also the good old game of football, what better way to let off some energy than running round a park kicking a ball about, and why not make it more fun by getting teamwear for a few friends and holding a mini tournament.
Many parents, it was found, no longer remembered how to play with their children, the sort of games that children found engaging and which were imaginative and creative enough to aid in their child’s development.
So with your newborn baby, make the right start – engage in play and interesting activities with the child from the beginning that are not only good and engaging for the baby, but are also enjoyable for the parents.
Take a look back at your own childhood to see what it was that amused you and you enjoyed doing with your parents. Take pointers from these four key ingredients of successful parent-child playtime:
- Education
- Inspiration
- Integration
- Communication
And above all remember to enjoy being with your baby, and enjoy each and every stage of this precious babyhood, a stage that will never repeat itself and which you may well regret the passing of.
