Why Friendship and Play Are Good For Your Child with Disability?

Just like anything else, making friends is essential for the little ones, especially for the disabled children. You should always encourage your child to learn how to play and grow the friendship. Play and friendship help disabled kids to learn many things that are not even taught in a classroom. Mixing up with other kids makes them feel motivated and also develop their skills and intelligence.
The opportunity for social interactions with others is needed for the development of all children. Interacting socially with a person you don’t know personally develops a sense of self and they also learn what others expect from them.

Importance of Friendship and Play For Your Child with Disability

You shouldn’t allow your little ones sit at home and play indoor games. This makes them socially inactive and also affects their growth. The more they will play, the better it will make your child feel.

• Socio-Emotional Development –

Both play and friendship help your child learn about sharing, interacting and feel what other people are telling or asking them for. Interacting with other kids will help them learn loads of things that are essential for their growth and development. Friends are caring too and thus they will also learn how they can rely on other kids for support.

• Communicative Skills –

Interacting with other kids is how the little ones start feeling good while speaking. The more they mix, the more they speak and this develops their communicative skills. He/She can see how other kids use their words to speak or when they want something. This boosts their urge to speak as well. She can even start practicing her words too. Once your child feels confident about communicating, he/she likely to get better with each interaction. In case they suffer from any behavioral problem, better communication skills might help.

• Physical development –

Friendship with a couple of new friends is the best way to encourage your little one join and get involved in several physical activities like running, jumping, climbing or building things. Participating in physical activities can improve your child’s motor skills, muscle tone and most importantly, it builds the level of confidence.

If your child is physically disabled and it’s really hard for him to be active, you should inspire him her play with the appropriate playground equipment for disabled children. Such equipments are designed in a manner so that the disabled kids can play without any obscurity.
Play with your disabled child: No matter what, you child should learn how to share, listen and react to others. Parents can help their little ones practice these things, needed in their everyday life. This is when they learn a lot of things while watching their parents. It’s your responsibility to teach them how to behave or how to talk with others.
Parents should always ensure that their little one is playing or mixing with the right people. At the initial phase, you should accompany them to the playground so that they don’t feel ignored or left out. If you can make playing with other children fun, they’ll surely want to do it again.