creative play is important for child developmentA lot of importance is placed on encouraging children to be active during their playtime breaks especially as it is an important way of helping to tackle childhood obesity; less emphasis, however, is placed on creative play. While active play is important, ensuring that children’s creativity is encouraged and nurtured through play is also a fundamental part of their development.

Here are 5 reasons why creative play is important for child development.

Imagination and childhood

Many of us remember during our childhoods using clothes from a dressing up box to turn ourselves into characters and create imaginary worlds. As children this allowed us to use our imaginations and develop our creativity. For many children using their imaginations comes naturally and only takes a little bit of encouragement for them to truly harness their imaginations. The more imaginative a child is the more creative they will become, which harnessed correctly will help them to achieve higher grades in their classes.

Helps nurture independent thought

Independent thought will enable children to think critically and problem solve easier. Creativity is linked to independent thought and the more creative a child is the more likely they are to be able to think independently. A great way of encouraging children’s independent thought is by introducing play activities that mean they have to problem solve and think critically, as this will ensure that they have to think creatively in a fun environment.

Encourages children to explore

A creative mind is more likely to explore new ideas and want to learn new information and this is true for children as much as adults. Encouraging children to be creative will make them more receptive to learning about a vast range of subjects and help to enhance their curiosity about the world around them. This will not only help them during school classes, but will also encourage them to take their learning out of the classroom.

Link between creativity and intelligence

Research has shown that there is a link between creativity and intelligence and that the more creative a person is the more intelligent they are likely to be. This means that encouraging children to be more creative will help to develop their intellect, resulting in them performing better in their classes. Overall the more creative a child is the more likely they are to perform better in all their subjects from maths to English and achieve better grades throughout their education.

Promotes happiness and wellbeing

Along with intellect development, creativity is also thought to increase happiness. Promoting happiness and wellbeing is a vital part of children’s development as it helps them to become more confident and outgoing personalities. As well as this the more confident and happy a child is there is a higher likelihood of them wanting to try new activities such as after school clubs, helping to develop their independence.

Creativity is linked to many positive aspect of a child’s development and by encouraging creative play will help to ensure that children mature into intelligent, independent and happy adults.