Play is not pointless fun.
For all people, but crucially for children, play profoundly supports and promotes social and emotional skills, self regulation, language and thinking. Most parents easily see that playing with others can help children learn to do things like interact, share and generally get on with others. It fairly obviously encourages children to use language to share ideas, negotiate and cooperate. From there it’s a small leap to see that play can help children learn to regulate their behavior, as when they must wait their turn or inhibit an impulse to be selfish or inconsiderate. Another . . .