In 2024, games exhibit characteristics such as group participation, role-playing, rules, and virtuality. Play is an instinct for children, and as child psychologist Rudolf once said, “Play is the pillar of a child’s world; children connect with each other through play.” For preschoolers, games are particularly suitable activities, aligning with the requirements of early childhood education. Given this, games should become a primary activity for preschoolers. But how exactly do games influence young children’s psychological development? Based on my practical experience, I would like to share a few insights.
1. Games as the Source of Psychological Development in Young Children
Preschool children are at a stage where their awareness, memory, thinking, imagination, and other advanced psychological functions, as well as their personalities, are forming and developing. These advanced psychological functions lay the groundwork for children to learn, live, and become responsible individuals in the future. Through group participation in games set within certain rules and virtual scenarios, children take on specific roles with corresponding behaviors. This makes the abstract social experiences and interpersonal relationships of the adult world more comprehensible and acceptable to children, providing them with a powerful motivation to understand the world around them. In games, children often display higher intellectual levels and more activity than usual because games significantly activate their potential, particularly in developing their thinking, memory, imagination, and language skills. Hence, Vygotsky viewed play as the source of children’s psychological development, playing an irreplaceable role in their healthy growth.
2. Key Aspects of How Games Impact Children’s Psychological Development
a. Boosting Confidence and Willpower
Games often involve two or more children, playing a crucial role in developing their emotions and overcoming loneliness. For example, some children are shy and withdrawn when they first start school and hesitate to interact with others. To address this, I designed a “Phone Call” game where children report their names and greet each other. This increased their understanding, strengthened interactions, and developed their language skills. Through these activities, children experience success and failure, gaining insights into their abilities. Successes boost their confidence, leading them to believe they are valuable and competent, fostering a positive mindset. Gradually increasing the intellectual challenges and difficulties in games helps children face failures and setbacks, enhancing their problem-solving abilities, collaborative spirit, and willpower to overcome difficulties, thereby improving their psychological resilience under pressure.
b. Enhancing Responsibility and Discipline
Children enjoy taking on specific roles during play, each with corresponding behaviors and responsibilities. For instance, in the “Egg Baby” game, children play “Egg Mom” and “Egg Dad,” each bringing a raw egg from home as their “Egg Baby.” These “Egg Babies” are fragile and require careful handling. In taking care of them, children show patience and responsibility. When an “Egg Baby” accidentally breaks, the resulting sadness and regret deeply affect the children. Teachers act as doctors treating the “Egg Baby,” increasing children’s concern for its health. Through the experience of being “Egg Baby” parents, children accumulate hardships, fostering love and responsibility. These experiences help them understand the efforts of parents and develop empathy and care for others.
Games have inherent rules, helping to cultivate children’s behavior and discipline. Some children, spoiled at home, develop bad habits like being self-centered. To address this, I used the story “The Little Bear Hosts a Party” for role-playing, guiding children to consider how to treat others if they were the little bear. Through the performance, children learned the importance of unity and mutual help among friends. In games, children’s interactions gradually lead to social psychological phenomena like conformity, suggestion, and public opinion, regulating their behavior and fostering a sense of community.
c. Stimulating Imagination and Creativity
Every child is a born scientist, and games can fully stimulate their imagination and creativity. In games, children face an open psychological and physical environment, and with appropriate guidance and encouragement from teachers, they can fully unleash their creativity. More than the goals of the games, I value the process of thinking and creating within them. This process is crucial for forming positive learning attitudes and methods. Through games, children learn that achieving goals within certain rules requires specific approaches. Finding these approaches is the process of learning and creating. Games, with their strong element of fun, provide new and exciting stimuli, making learning and creativity sustainable. For example, in learning about “dividing into halves,” I asked children to divide a rectangle into two equal parts in different ways. This process stimulated their thinking and creativity. Practice shows that children are more enthusiastic and proactive in games, willing to observe, manipulate, explore, and discover independently, thereby understanding and solving problems.
Maria Montessori once said, “If children grow up in an environment that encourages their natural, orderly development, they will ‘break through’ into learning and become self-motivators and self-learners.” Therefore, during games, teachers should adopt an appreciative attitude, use open-ended language, remind children of rules, encourage them to consider others, and guide them to integrate new experiences with existing ones, thus promoting healthier psychological development.
