Six-month old Rehan giggles as his mother plays a game of ‘taaa’ (peek aboo) with him. Three-years old Emaan thinks its funny when her father puts on a silly hat. Five-years old Hassan throws a cape around his shoulders, runs across the room and pretends to be Superman.

Play has a crucial role in the optimal growth, learning, and development of children from infancy through adolescence. From babies, to toddlers to pre-schoolers, children’s drive to play is instinctive. There is substantial evidence that play provides benefits for cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and moral development of children from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. However despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has noticeably reduced for children. This can be attributed to a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure, and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities at the expense of recess or free play.

In the rapidly changing world characterized by dramatic shifts in what all children are expected to know and be able to do, academic standards are becoming higher and tougher and increasingly focusing on a narrow view of learning. Play is being replaced by lessons focused on cognitive development, particularly literacy and reading, to match the content of standardized testing.

“We want children to sit down and write their names at three years of age and do rote and regimented tasks that are extremely boring at a young age.” (Adele Brodkin, 2005). The lessons addressing cognitive development often involve “children sitting at tables engaged in whole-class activities”, instead of activities such as making figures from play-dough, with the teacher engaging the children in conversations about their work. Alphabet drills and “quiet desk work” are also progressively used. Even though most realize the importance of play, parents of young children are increasingly demanding preschool content that they view as “academic”, rather than play. Parents today are increasingly obsessive about standardized and regimented academic achievements which are marked by some tangible gain at school such as a certificate, an A grade or an appreciative star on a child’s face. For example, parents agree in theory that play is important, but they say, 'Could you just throw in the worksheets, so that I can see what they are learning?'

Play is spontaneous within children and offers an ideal opportunity for parents and caregivers to engage fully with their children. Educators have the responsibility to defend play-based preschool environments from attacks from individuals, including parents, who question their value; or else it is likely that early childhood programs will eventually succumb to parental pressure and change curricula to reflect parental preferences, even if these are ill-advised, such as devaluing play-considering it to be meaningless and unproductive and suggesting it to be replaced by closely monitored structured academic activities.

Consequently, children today have less time and opportunity to play than did children of previous generations. This in turn has repercussions on children’s cognitive, social and emotional growth experience.

Cognitive Development: Evidence and long-term research suggests a strong relationship between play and cognitive development. Researchers also highlight a positive relationship between play and student learning such as improvements to attention, planning skills, and attitudes; creativity and divergent thinking; perspective-taking; memory; and language development.

Although play is often thought of in terms of “free play”, dictated by the child, play can also be educationally focused, directed by the teacher or parent, to reach specific educational goals. Play provides opportunities for acquiring many cognitive skills such as vocabulary, language skills, problem solving, perspective taking, representational skills, memory, and creativity. Children learn specific competencies related to academic and social success through play.

Play has been found to contribute to early literacy development as well as to social development, including social skills such as turn taking, collaboration and following rules, empathy, self-regulation, self-confidence, impulse control, and motivation. These factors impact cognitive development and are just as important in learning as the ability to recognize letters or sounds.

Social and Emotional Development: As social organisms, humans have a basic need to belong to and feel part of a group and to learn how to live and work in groups with different compositions and for different purposes. Play serves several functions in satisfying these needs and developing these social and emotional life skills. For example, children of all ages need to socialize as contributing members of their respective cultures. Numerous studies indicate that play gives children the opportunity to match their behaviour with others and to take into account viewpoints that differ from their own. If, play is constructive and positive; children learn to accept, express and cope with their emotional pain and strain.

Thus, play provides the rich experience children need to learn social skills; become sensitive to others' needs and values; handle exclusion and dominance; manage their emotions; learn self-control; and share power, space, and ideas with others. At all levels of development, play enables children to feel comfortable and in control of their feelings by allowing the expression of unacceptable feelings in acceptable ways and providing the opportunity to work through conflicting feelings.

There is a large body of scientific literature that demonstrates the health-promoting effects in adults of various forms of social connection. However, little attention has been paid to those influences in early life that allow children to enter adulthood with the abilities to develop and to maintain social connections. These abilities arise through early influences on the developing brain that can be cultivated through unstructured free play. Although many abilities may contribute to achieving social connections, we maintain that empathy, an ability that emerges in early childhood, is the key to meaningful affiliation, and arises, in part, from the experience of free play.

Few would disagree that the primary goal of education is student learning and that all educators, families, and policymakers bear the responsibility of making learning accessible to all children. Numerous studies have shown that children with better social skills and emotional health succeed academically. Play has also shown to help children adjust to the school setting and even to enhance children’s learning readiness, learning behavior, and problem-solving skills.

Play and unscheduled time that allow for peer interactions are important components of social-emotional learning.

Play therefore remains integral to the academic environment and child-initiated, teacher-supported play is an essential component of developmentally appropriate practice. It ensures that the school setting attends to the social and emotional development of children as well as their cognitive development.

In addition to supporting cognitive and social development, play also stimulates children's physical and linguistic development. Children express and represent their ideas, thoughts, and feelings when engaged in symbolic play. During play children can learn to deal with emotions, to interact with others, to resolve conflicts, and to gain a sense of competence, all in the safety that only play affords. Through play, children can also develop their imaginations and creativity.

Play is a cherished part of childhood that offers children important developmental benefits. Encouraging and supporting the implementation and integration of play as a daily practice is therefore important in order to create the optimal developmental milieu for children.