Did you know? A game as simple as Peek-a-boo can change the world and the mindset of the new generations coming if only Parents pay attention to this. Here is how.

The first 5 years of a child’s life are the most important for health, wellness and development, especially for the brain. A child’s brain develops faster in the early years than any other time in life. This is why we must prioritize connecting and playing with young children.

5 top tips for healthy child development

Connecting with the child
Talking to the child
Playing with the child
A Healthy Home
Community

Watch this video

She asks some pertinent parenting questions👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/3lzWGmR11x

— Tansu YEĞEN (@TansuYegen) December 28, 2022

How do you come in as the parent to help better growth and development?

Serve & Return

Serve and return functions similarly to a game of tennis or volleyball between a child and a caregiver. The child “serves” by making eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, babbling, seeks attention or touching others. A caring caregiver will “return the serve” by responding with a smile, playing peekaboo, or sharing a toy or a laugh. Serve and Return simply means connect, talk and play with your children to help them development optimally.

Simple things you can do with your kids to encourage a healthy mental development

Copycat games builds imagination and empathy
Reading a book and storytelling builds vocabulary
Naming and pointing games build attention
Spelling games builds vocabulary and confidence
Peek-a-boo builds memory and trust

Talking, playing and connecting with children not only builds trust, connection and bond, it strengthens relationships and mental development. It teaches some of the most important life skills such as focus, attention, empathy, relationship, connection, interaction, making friends, tenacity, and even making friends.

Kids are hardwired to seek meaningful connections and not receiving them causes frustrations, tantrums and mental stress. A child who is constantly turned away by a busy parent will grow up feeling inadequate, unwanted or worse still, not good enough and low self esteem. Such kids end up as people pleasers and attention seekers.

5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return

1. Notice the serve:

Take note of the serve and share the child’s attention. Is the child looking at something or pointing at something? Making a sound or a facial expression? Is she tense and relaxing her muscles or moving her arms and legs?

That is a serve. While you can’t spend the whole day watching the child, look for small windows to do this multiple times throughout the day and “return”.

2. Return the serve: by encouraging and assisting.

You can do this in a variety of ways, including comforting the child with a hug and gentle words, providing something the child wants or needs, assisting, playing, and acknowledging. You could, for example, make a sound or a facial expression like “I see!” or smile and nod to let him know you’re noticing the same thing that has her attention. You can also pick up the object and hand it to the child so the child feels seen. Child that get such intense level of attention and affection will grow into emotionally stable adults and not people pleasers.

3. Name it

When you return a child’s serve by naming what she is seeing, doing, or feeling, you are making important connections in her brain about language even before she can talk or understand what you are saying.
Any person, thing, action, thought, feeling, or combination can be named. For instance, a child may point to her feet, and you may point to them as well and say, your feet! It may seem ‘silly’ sometimes but it’s the best thing for your child’s development.

4. Take turns and wait

After you return a serve, wait and see if your child initiates interaction or wants some alone playtime. Maintain the back-and-forth interaction. Give the child a chance to respond every time you return a serve. The more frequently you return a serve, the more likely he is to continue the interaction. Waiting is essential. Children, especially when they are very young and learning so many things at once, require time to form their ideas or responses. Waiting for the child to respond allows the turns to continue.

5. Practice Endings and Beginnings

When a child is finished or ready to move on to a new activity, he or she gives a signal of being bored. They may drop a toy, pick up another, or turn to look at something else. When you share a child’s attention, you’ll notice when she’s ready to stop and start something new.

The importance of play in Child Development

Play is child development not a part of it. Children learn through play. Children learn language skills, emotions and creativity, as well as social and intellectual skills, through play. For most children, play is natural and spontaneous, though some children may require additional assistance from adults. Parents should encourage time off gadgets and electronic devices and engage in both indoors and outdoors play with their children.

This allows children to put new ideas and skills to the test, take risks, play pretend, demonstrate imagination, learn new words, and solve problems on their own or with others. As Adults, we play an important role. We can provide adequate time, space, and resources. Clothing, boxes, buckets, sand, and old blankets, paper, scissors, toys and so on that can be used to inspire play and ignite children’s imaginations.

What do I do if my child is above the age of 5 and I haven’t given much attention to “serve & return?”

Serve and return interactions can occur at any time, anywhere, at any age (beginning shortly after birth preferably), and occur numerous times per day but can still be done with young children if the early years were missed. Serving and returning is something we can do at any age!

Play activities: Pre-birth

For babies and young children, living, playing, and learning are nearly synonymous for the majority of the time. For young babies, play begins with their mother’s hand touching the spot where they have just kicked her stomach, or when she sings or talks to them. A mother’s voice before the baby is born, as well as her face, touch, and gestures after the baby is born, all contribute to the emotional warmth and interaction that leads to play and learning for babies.

Play activities: The first months

Newborn babies are drawn to the human face and learn to ‘read’ the face. They carefully observe your eyes and mouth, learning everything they can about you, and they enjoy hearing you sing and watching the various muscle movements in you face. The baby’s smiles widen as he or she expresses delight at seeing special people like dad, mom, big brother, and grandparents. Young babies are fascinated by movement, colors and sounds so go ahead and make funny sounds, make faces, shake loud rattles and colorful toys in front of them.

Play activities: Age 1-3 years old

Toddlers enjoy stacking, building blocks, banging things together, filling and emptying containers, dropping things on the floor while watching it go down and hit the ground. They find it fascinating. Two-year-old enjoy playing pretend, imitating things they see you or other people do, such as cooking, talking on the phone, or playing the trumpet.

When they play this way, they don’t always need the real thing because they can adapt anything to their pretend play. Children begin to play with others more as they approach their third birthday so don’t panic if they are not into playing with other kids around them just yet. Keep introducing activities that require team play such as ball throwing. This encourages them to interact more with friends and siblings.

Play can be messy. In fact, play is messy. However, the advantages are too innumerable to be ignored.

Pro tip: If your house is always littered with toys, try toy rotation. Play doesn’t mean your child needs too many toys. In fact, research shows that the fewer they have, the better as they are forced to get creative with what’s available.

Babies and toddlers enjoy looking at books, listening to stories and rhymes, and singing along.

Play activities: Age 3-5 years old

Providing both planned and unstructured play experiences for children’s play is an important way for adults to support both enjoyable and challenging learning for children. Children learn at the highest level when they play. Play can help children develop language skills by encouraging them to talk to one another or by introducing new vocabulary that they can use and act out in their play. Adults can provide toys for pretend play, and space where they can freely explore both indoors and outdoors.

Play activities: Age 6-8 years old

These ‘big’ boys and girls are more active and energetic, therefore, may require more physical activities.

They enjoy large-muscle activities like jump rope, bike riding, ball games, baking, cooking.
Fine motor activities such as drawing, braiding, cutting, and jigsaw puzzles.
Incorporate reading, writing, and simple math into games and toys.
Nature/Outdoor play
Storytelling and Drama/Mimicking

A playful approach to learning builds on children’s interests and responds to their play ideas while also providing opportunities for structured activities to teach specific life skills and knowledge.