5 Benefits of Playing on a Swing Set for Children
It’s no secret that getting your kids (and yourself) off the couch can be great for everyone’s physical and mental health. Getting outside and making the most of the sunshine and fresh air is great exercise and even gives you more opportunities to bond with your family.
Wellness Benefits of Swing Sets
Play time is even easier when you only have to go into the backyard instead of the local park to enjoy the benefits of a swing set. So take a minute to peel away from those television and phone screens and see what other benefits having a swing set can do for your children.
Building Hand-Eye Coordination
Children naturally want to run, climb, and explore their surroundings, but did you know that all of that outdoor activity can also improve hand-eye coordination? Hand-eye coordination is an essential skill that your child will use every day for the rest of their lives. From writing their homework, to using a computer, playing sports, or even something as simple as eating their food, honing your child’s coordination is key to setting them up for success.
Playing on a swing set requires both balance and coordination; these two skills are developed together when a child swings. As a result, kids will be better at using their vision to adjust their balance and movement.
Body & Spatial Awareness
As your child grows, not only will they be learning about the world around them, but also about themselves. Before you know it, your tiny baby will be running, playing, and likely falling all over themselves as they develop more body and spatial awareness.
To help harness some of the clumsy and uncoordinated movement, consider letting your children play on the backyard swing set more often. Running and jumping onto the swings, pushing other swingers, climbing up ladders, and more, all help to aid those awareness skills. The exercise will help develop more upper body strength and strengthen fine motor skills for your child, as well as improve grip strength and finger coordination.
In addition to helping upper body strength, children pumping their legs on the swing set is another great form of exercise. With a longer length swing, kids have to work harder to get up momentum. This works their legs, arms, and core all at once, giving a greater sense of balance and coordination in the long run.
Focus & Attention
It’s a bird…it’s a plane…oh wait no, that’s just your child’s attention and focus skipping on to the next fun opportunity. Sound familiar? Well don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Getting your children to focus and concentrate can often be a daunting task, especially when they’re full of so much energy. There’s a reason kids have recess at school— it helps to get the blood flowing and break up the monotony of the day. Giving kids a refresher of sorts tends to make focusing on more important tasks (like homework or learning in class), a lot more rewarding. Even if there’s only time to swing for a few minutes between tasks, the increased endorphins will wake up a tired brain and body. That small bit of extra exercise will help kids with their attention span and give a nice overall boost to their mental health.
Sensory Integration
Young toddlers and preschoolers are constantly learning about their surroundings via touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. For some children, sensory overload can be very upsetting and can put their entire mood out of balance. Whether it’s not liking the feeling of something touching their skin, an overload of sounds or smells, or something else entirely, it’s very common for children in this age range to have some sort of sensory issue.
Sensory Integration
Young toddlers and preschoolers are constantly learning about their surroundings via touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. For some children, sensory overload can be very upsetting and can put their entire mood out of balance. Whether it’s not liking the feeling of something touching their skin, an overload of sounds or smells, or something else entirely, it’s very common for children in this age range to have some sort of sensory issue.
While this is all very normal, there are ways to help put your child back into balance and develop better sensory integration. By taking them outside and letting them swing on a swing set, the kids are able to focus on something less irritating to help them calm down. The rocking motion of swinging can be very relaxing for children and helps to stimulate the cerebral cortex in their brain, which helps with focus.
In addition, the sense of motion and balance awareness helps children understand the world from a different perspective when they’re swinging. The height and movement also offers up a different plane of motion and sensory stimulation.
Helps Your Child Sleep
After a day full of fun, learning, and exercise, it’s finally bed time—but just like adults, going to sleep can be a challenge for children. While kids may not be lying in bed thinking about bills, grocery lists, or work in the morning, their little minds can still run amok. If they’re not exhausted from exercising and playing on a swing set at the end of the day, there’s another use for swinging that will help your child sleep.
Just like infants enjoy a gentle rocking motion, young children tend to enjoy gentle swinging motions to help them relax and fall asleep faster. The back and forth and spinning motions help balance neurological activity in your child’s brain, settling haywire minds into a more restful state.
This is especially helpful for children with autism, sensory integration disorder, anxiety, or OCD since swinging can help them de-stress. The swinging motion is soothing for these children and having both an indoor and outdoor swing can be beneficial during rainy days. At the end of the day, every parent must decide what is right and best for their own children. Purchasing a swing set for your child is a big decision, but here at Star Swings, we’ll be with you every step (or swing) of the way. Take a look at what swing sets we offer and get in touch with us today!