We love the opportunity to participate with the LEGO community at events like the recent Brickfest convention in Tulsa. Lego brings together families. Parents and kids enjoying something together. What a beautiful gift! To read more about enjoying your child, check out our article on enjoyment HERE.
We wanted to recap one of our “WHYS.” Here is a refresh of an earliet article on “Why Lego?”
Building with Lego allows play on many different levels. Children are able to put things together, say what they are, determine their purpose, use it, try it, crash it, rebuild it, change it. There is a level of creativity, control, and exploration that is unrivaled.
That is power that is safe for kids to use and it opens multiple doors. Just some of the benefits are…
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- Use of power – Kids need to know that they capable. They need to know that they have some power to use. When they believe that, they are more motivated to take action. If you want them to pursue goals, they need to believe that they have the ability to achieve goals. When they create something that a parent enjoys it reinforces that they did well.
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- Change is okay – No one likes to have to redo what they’ve already done. However, improvement requires doing something, and doing it again, and again. Lego bricks are easily reassembled and the reward is immediate. That encourages people to try multiple ideas in a fun environment. Do that enough and eventually change and fun will go hand in hand.
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- Emotional processing – Gaining understanding of how you feel is hard. Adults pay good money to talk to a professional just to gain personal insight and feel better about their life. Up until age 10, kids have a hard time connecting to their feelings through words. Instead they act it out repeatedly. They play. With Lego, not only do kids get to play, they get to make what to play with. It is an engrossing world inside of themselves.
These aspects of play are powerful even when kids play on their own but they are nuclear when parents are smiling across from the child while they play. Time spent having fun with children is life changing. For you and your child.