Tip 127: New friends and toys at playgroups

A crawling baby/walking toddler loves to explore new play environments. It is through such exploration and play that the baby develops his/her mental faculty. It could be possible that bringing a baby to new playgroups, as opposed to a daily 9-5pm routine at the same childcare center allows the baby to develop a sense of adaptability, courage, curiosity and adventure. These could be the very characteristics necessary for children in the new global age. Even just 1-2 hours a day, on a frequency of 2-4 days a week is sufficient to fuel the interest in the baby to look forward to go to a playgroup to learn something new always. Usually, kids in such playgroups are more happy to meet new friends since they are not bored at the place and come each time with good expectations to play. It is such happy environments that further stimulates learning and encourages the baby to inculcate new positive habits.



As shared previously, Tomomi prefers a home near to a park and playground where she would take Haruka daily if the weather is good. Besides going to the park, Tomomi takes Haruka to the playcenter/playgroup. In London, she would take Haruka to the Ideastore (term used for library) two times a week to play for free for 2-3 hours then have lunch with me since the Ideastore is near to my office. In Hong Kong, the free public playcenter at the library has very tight schedules with a long queue of parents, maids and grandparents waiting. So, its only possible to play for 1 hour, 2-4 days a week. In Tokyo, we previously joined to a government playcenter 5 minutes from our home for just 1500 yen (USD$15) a year and there is unlimited visits as there are less children in Japan. I have found all these playcenters are very helpful to Haruka in playing new toys in large space and meeting other babies. In Tokyo, Tomomi could make new friends with other mummies and so is London as the mothers are friendly there. In Hong Kong, the short play period does not help and parents either could not speak English or are more shy to start conversations with each other. Nevertheless, these different playcenters have different toys and notice boards in different languages which I think Haruka is loving to learn as well.












Do you send your children to other playcenters/playgroups besides their usual routine? Do you think it helps to bring new passion to playing?

(Photos show two of the videos of a session at the Idea store, Canary Wharf which Haruka watches over and over again, Haruka playing at the Hong Kong toy library at the Hong Kong Central Library, Causeway Bay and a moment of reflection as Haruka takes the ferry to Kowloon from Hong Kong island).