Three Ways to Incorporate Free Play into Your Child's Routine

1. Reduce Your Child’s Amount of Structured Time:
If your preschool-age child is enrolled in extracurricular activities every day of the week, consider dropping some of these activities. Reducing the amount of structured time in the child’s day will provide opportunities for unstructured free play.

2. Allow Your Child to Make Choices:
Caregivers should enable and encourage their children to make choices about the activities they want to pursue. Decision- making promotes exploration, confidence and empowerment of the child – vital components for building self-esteem and self-efficacy.

3. Let Your Child Experience Boredom:
Creativity often blooms when your child becomes bored. An environment in which every moment of your child’s day is structured will not allow for boredom, limiting opportunities for creativity.

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