Children's behaviour towards undirected recreational play Research Paper - 1

Children's behaviour towards undirected recreational play - Research Paper Example Some of these common play activities include: hide and seek; peek a boo et cetera. Michael (2009) argues that to children, play tends to be instinctive. According to research conducted by American Association for Physical activity (2012), it illuminates that besides play being fun and exciting, it also facilitates the development of a child’s cognition, and motor skills including imagination, problem solving, creativity and social skills. Perhaps, this explains the notion that children who are playful usually tend to be intelligent and emotionally stable. Gray (2008) points out that one way of categorizing child play is directed and undirected play. Directed play is where play is controlled by adults. Gray (2008) further asserts that this mainly occurs in schools particularly early childhood classes such as Early Years, and primary. The adults engage the children in organized activities where the children have to follow the rules outlined by the adults. Moreover, the objective and focus of play, which is mostly to win in accordance to the stipulated rules, is dictated by the adults. Undirected play, on the other hand, takes place without the supervision of adults. In this play, the children are simply left to create their own forms of play. One common instance is during break time in learning institutions where children are left to play on their own. Several research studies have focused on the impact and importance of play among children. However, it will be prudent to focus on the impact and importance of a specific category of play. This main objective of this research paper, therefore, is to determine children’s behavior towards undirected play. To achieve the above objective, a specific objective will focus on identifying the importance and impact of directed and undirected play among children, as well as the behavioral problems. Gray (2008) focuses his literature work on the value of play. He