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Tips for parents

Video transcript

Tips for parents

Video transcript

[Play Advocate: Scott MacKenzie speaking]

Hey I'm Scott from Sport New Zealand. I work with in the area of play. Over the last couple of months we've had a whole lot of play champions and people who are passionate about play coming together to talk, test, and challenge ourselves to ensure that we preserve and enhance play in New Zealand to the benefit of all young New Zealanders going into the future. We've got a few more tips for you guys so if you hang in there and stay tuned we'll have them to you in a minute.

[Community recreation advisor: Daphne Pilaar speaking]

A tip for parents about encouraging children to play in the outdoors is actually to let them… let them get dirty, let them fall, let them climb. Maybe talk about risk with them, but let them, stop saying don’t. So that's really important for parents.

[Young people’s manager: Kane Wilson speaking]

A tip for parents is to model these behaviours themself to their children and be involved.

[Team leader - Activation: Ellie Davidson speaking]

A tip for play is to let the children lead what they want to do. Don't intervene or don't tell them what they should be doing. This is the child's opportunity to learn through play.

[Play Sport - Activator: Apanui Heemi speaking]

Let your kids take risks. You know, kids know when they've reached their limits and they won't push past them. So…yeah, don't be afraid to let your kids explore and take risks.

[Community sport advisor: Jess McJorrow speaking]

Think back to those experiences that you had as a child and allow your children to definitely create their own experiences, but still you can help encourage and feed into those experiences. And I'm sure that you all have your own fabulous things that you can draw back from, so I encourage you to bring that to life and into your child's life and allow them to have those same experiences that you had.

[Play Advocate: Scott MacKenzie speaking]

A tip for parents at home is that play and its purest form is low cost - no cost. You don't need to spend large amounts of money on play - the environment itself can provide a really deep rich and wide play experience.

[Young people consultant: Karen Laurie speaking]

So play is just absolutely crucial and we just need to make sure that we as adults enjoy, and allow the opportunity to enable kids to take ownership of their play themselves.

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