Looking back into the fairy-tale world of childhood, we usually remember the brightest moments of our lives — trips, gifts, friends, and the games we played. A child's world is a world of games and fun. Life before the computer age was different, but no less interesting. And recalling my own childhood world, among the usual games like hide-and-seek, “red light, green light,” “slower you go, further you'll be,” “cossacks and robbers,” and others, I remember one game that my friends and I invented and played for a very long time, over several years.
We were about 10 or 11 years old when, during summer vacation, one of us borrowed Jules Verne's “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” from the library. After taking turns reading this amazing story about the mysterious Captain Nemo, we decided to create our own underwater world of adventure. We converted an old storage shed in a neighbor's yard into the submarine “Nautilus,” and set off on a remarkable journey where our imagination painted amazing fish and underwater creatures, colorful corals and pearls, as well as the clash between the harsh world around us and Captain Nemo's utopian views.
I remembered this extraordinary story when a family of starlings settled under the eaves of our balcony and soon had little chicks of their own. Together with my grandchildren, we had the chance to watch how the parents fed their little ones and took care of them. At first we just observed them, then we began inventing various stories about the starlings' lives, and eventually we began playing at being little starlings learning to fly, meeting other birds and animals, and discovering the world around them.
Play is a wonderful way to spend time — it's an engaging activity during which you can rest and have fun. Games are a wonderful means of interaction and learning. They support the development of new abilities and skills. Children especially love creative, spontaneous play, and such play offers a wonderful opportunity to practice different aspects of behavior and communication.
If your child loves to play but doesn't like to lose, then playing games can be a wonderful opportunity to teach them how to cope with disappointment. Following the rules of a game teaches respect for boundaries and interaction with an opponent. Adults shouldn't always help children win, because an adult's help deprives children of the chance to learn the realities of life. They won't always win in life, so they need to learn to accept defeat too.
It's important for adults to play games too! It's an engaging way to feed your imagination, develop creativity, practice problem-solving, and achieve emotional balance. And for older people, board games help preserve cognitive skills; play supports functions related to reaction time and also reduces the risk of dementia.
Games are an engaging way to improve many aspects of your life. So the next time you hear, “Let's play a game!” — play with pleasure!
