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Our Kids / At Play

Just For The Fun Of It

The Children's Home believes that play is crucial for a child's or youth social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth. It is a very common and non-threatening way of learning about what they like, how to manage emotions and how to make constructive use of the leisure time.

Play supports emotional development by providing a way to express and cope with feelings. It practices both verbal and nonverbal communication skills by negotiating roles, trying to gain access to ongoing play, and appreciating the feelings of others. Children and youth have many opportunities to respond to their peers’ feelings while waiting for their turn and sharing materials and experiences. Through play they are able to experience others’ points of view by working through conflicts about space, materials, or rules positively

Children learn valuable emotional skills, such as increasingly realistic self-perceptions, the ability to manage their emotions, and self-control that improves over time through games and inventions. As older children engage in spontaneous and structured play activities, they come to see themselves as good in some areas and less good in others. These opportunities to monitor and discriminate among feelings and emotions contribute to children’s beliefs about their own capacity.

Allied therapies (Art, Music and Dance/Movement) complement our Specialty Services and Psychiatric Community Home Programs by providing therapeutic alternatives to traditional talk therapy. Through individual and group processes, art, music and dance help these youth improve self-awareness and control, better understand and recognize emotions, develop frustration tolerance and conflict resolution skills, improve interpersonal and social skills, and decreases in anxiety, depression, and conduct problems