Welcome to our playful families pages where you will find practical ideas to support play in and around the home.
Our vision would be that our homes and family environment are places where children and young people can enjoy plentiful play opportunities, indoor and out, appropriate to their age, stage, ability and preferences.
What are playful families?
We want parents, carers and families to feel more confident and able to facilitate play opportunities in and around their homes, so that children will have more satisfying and wide-ranging play experiences. We want to support staff that work with families to have the skills, knowledge and confidence to promote play as an essential part of family life.
The day to day pressures on your time as a parent can sometimes mean you feel you don’t always have the time to play with your child. You can add play into a busy day by having a playful and curious mindset, by asking the question ‘what if?’ and enabling children to create, invent and lead play situations.
Children need time, space and permission to play in and around their homes.
We have lots of resources to support playful families on this and the next few pages.
The National Parenting Strategy is all about valuing and supporting Scotland’s parents as one of the single biggest ways of giving children the best start in life. When we refer to parents, we mean anyone with a parenting role and we mean parents of children of all ages from the early years right through the teenage years and into young adults. This isn’t about dictating to parents how to bring up their own children, this is about making it easier for parents to understand the positive difference they can make to their child’s development, helping parents to feel confident in their ability to care for their children, feel reassured that help is available if and when they need support and ultimately making parenting an even more rewarding experience.
