Parents shouldn’t be concerned at all. Play is how children naturally learn, it’s as important as eating and sleeping.

When children are playing they not only learn fundamental concepts that are the basis for later academic learning, but they’re also learning social skills.

The philosophy behind the first child care center that I worked at was that children learn through play. Every experience for them was a learning experience.

We still had parents say, “but it looks as if they are just playing all day.” Well they are; by playing, children are stimulating brain development as well as building a foundation for later learning.

Building with blocks, for example, is a math experience as much as it helps them develop concepts of shape, size, length and location. And with art, when they’re mixing colors, they’re learning hand-eye coordination and exercising their imagination and creativity.

I had a parent who would always come into the child care and ask me why we didn’t have “serious” projects every day. She thought we weren’t giving her 3-year old the proper education. We tried to assure her that at that age, children learn through play, but she eventually left our program.

Some parents only remember doing lesson plans when they were kids and think that their children should do the same. I have a parent of a 3-year old, for example, who is constantly asking me to teach her child her ABC’s. I don’t tell her that it is totally inappropriate to do so at such an early age, but when I do go over ABC exercises with the child, I do so with puzzles. So basically, the child is still playing, playing and learning.

I’ve had quite a few parents say, “but they’re always playing!” At that age even if they’re outside bouncing a ball, children are learning. They’re learning to count, learning about shapes and colors. They’re realizing that their bodies are developing, and most importantly, that they are slowly learning about concepts.