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How Young Children’s Play Promotes Healthy Development
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Family Resource Center Toddlers / Parenting

How Young Children's Play Promotes Healthy Development

Play that's fun supports well-being and skill-building

Writer: Kathryn L. Keough, PhD

Clinical Expert: Kathryn L. Keough, PhD

What You'll Learn

  • How play that's fun and makes kids happy supports their well-being
  • Why playing with other children helps kids develop social and emotional skills
  • Why physical activity and outdoor play are essential for healthy development

For preschoolers and kindergarteners, play is all about having fun! Play is also a vehicle for learning, and it has tremendous benefits for children’s development. Through play, children develop their cognitive, social, emotional, physical, creative, and language skills. The “fun” aspect of play is important, too. Happiness, sometimes referred to as subjective well-being, is a key ingredient of children’s overall well-being. Play is one of the primary ways young children seek out and experience positive emotions, like joy and excitement. Psychologists believe that childhood happiness can lead to positive personal, behavioral, psychological, and social outcomes.

Imaginative and child-led play

Children begin engaging in different kinds of imaginative play around age 2. In the toddler years, many children start acting out familiar events in their play, like rocking a baby doll or putting pretend food on a plate. This kind of play becomes more complex and creative in the preschool years, at times involving imaginary objects and detailed storylines. Pretend play can support learning outcomes and skill development in vocabulary, creativity, emotion regulation, and short-term memory, among others.  

Grown-ups can encourage play by joining in the fun! Caregivers can facilitate the natural learning that happens in open-ended play by playing along and following the child’s lead, without directing the play. In child-led play, children choose what they want to play with and how they want to play. Regular, enjoyable playtime together is a powerful way for caregivers to support happiness and emotional well-being in their young children. And the impact on well-being is not just on the child! Studies have shown that playing with your child can lead to reduced parenting stress.

Caregiver Tips:

  • Just 5 minutes a day of playtime can strengthen the caregiver-child relationship, especially if the caregiver joins the child’s play world and follows the child’s lead.
  • Caregivers can encourage pretend play by modeling how to use objects creatively and by acting out characters.

Playing with other children

Children’s play becomes more complex and social around age 3. Providing young children with opportunities to play with other kids is important for their development and learning. In the early preschool years, children begin to shift from parallel play to cooperative and social pretend play with their peers. This may look like two children working together on a puzzle or pretending to work at an ice cream shop. 

In play with peers, children build social and emotional skills as they face scenarios that require them to work together, solve problems, and consider others’ perspectives. The positive feelings that children have as they play together can also promote friendships.

Caregiver Tips:

  • Playing pretend with your child at home can help them practice and develop the skills required to engage in social pretend play with other kids, like cooperation, perspective-taking, and flexibility.
  • Young children benefit from adult scaffolding when challenges arise during social play, especially for more advanced social skills like problem solving and perspective taking.

Outdoor play and physical activity

Playing outside helps support healthy physical, social, cognitive, and emotional development in young children. In the outdoors, kids learn and develop as they explore nature, move around more freely, and challenge themselves through riskier play. For instance, a child might wade in a pond and collect pebbles, roll down a hill, or climb up onto a boulder. Outdoor play also creates endless opportunities for children to be creative and collaborative. This might look like your child pretending a stick is a magic wand or gathering a group together for a game of tag.

Physical activity is particularly important for preschoolers and kindergarteners, since they are growing and developing so quickly. Unfortunately, many young children are not getting enough physical activity each day, and only about half of preschoolers in the United States go outside to play at least once a day with a parent. Healthy levels of physical activity are linked to improved heart health, lung function, bone strength, and other important aspects of physical development and fitness. In addition to a range of health benefits, participating in physical activity leads to gains in young children’s social, motor, and cognitive skills. As young children find enjoyment through physical activity and outdoor play, they also build a foundation for future healthy habits and pro-environmental behaviors.

Caregiver Tips:

  • Three hours of daily physical activity is recommended by the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines for children under 6 years old.
  • Take a step back while supervising outdoor play! Research increasingly suggests that the benefits of age-appropriate risky play on children outweigh the potential costs. This may look like letting your child climb to the top of a play structure or run quickly down a hill. Importantly, a risk is different than a hazard — adults should intervene if a child is in danger of serious injury.  

Structured activities and sports

Early childhood structured activities, like classes and sports, can help your young child learn and develop their interests in a playful way. Young children find enjoyment in music, for instance, by singing songs, playing simple instruments, and listening to music. In music classes, children are encouraged to create or move along with music, which supports motor coordination. Through structured visual art activities like drawing, painting, and sculpting, young children can explore colors, textures, and shapes while also building their fine-motor skills and creativity.

Sports are a great way for your child to get active while having fun. Participating in a sport allows young children to build skills and challenge themselves as they work to learn the rules, physical techniques, and importance of teamwork. In fact, preschool-aged children who play sports or participate in organized physical activities appear to have better emotional health, social skills, and self-regulation abilities!

Many children this age will have a hard time staying fully engaged in a sport and playing by the rules. For example, they may run the opposite direction, score on their own goal, or twirl around on the field. If your child is having fun, they are reaping the benefits of these joyful experiences, which contribute to their overall well-being. Plus, research suggests that the number one reason kids play sports is because they find it fun.

Caregiver Tips:

  • Early childhood is a great time to help foster interests by allowing your child to explore a range of activities. Structured activities for this age group should be mostly focused on fun and exploration. It’s highly unlikely your kid will love every sport or activity they try. Follow their lead and keep trying until your child finds what is right for them.
  • Early childhood sports can be a great way to build community and meet other caregivers. Recreational and community sports leagues are a great way to get into youth sports, since they are often lower-cost and lower pressure. You can even volunteer to coach, regardless of whether you have prior experience playing the sport! Your primary job is to make sure the kids are having fun.

Play supports the healthy development of preschoolers and kindergarteners, and it also allows children to experience the positive emotions that are essential for subjective well-being. Early childhood is a time when kids are primed for creative thinking and learning. In fact, it is theorized that the fun that comes from play leads young children to explore further, try new things, and think flexibly. As kids have fun playing pretend, exploring nature, running around, or creating art, they have the potential to build lasting resources, including those related to relationships, skills, and overall health. Subjective well-being, or happiness, in childhood is linked to higher levels of empathy, social competence, self-regulation, resilience, and academic achievement. Early childhood play is all about having fun, but the benefits of play on children’s learning and development extend well beyond that!

This article was last reviewed or updated on May 30, 2025.

References

Topics
ToddlersParenting
Kathryn L. Keough, PhD
Kathryn L. Keough, PhD
Kathryn L. Keough, PhD, is a psychologist in the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute. Dr. Keough has … Read Bio

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