Surf, Sand, Sun, Sensory Skills and Smiles - The Potential Ability Group (TPAG)

January 20th, 2020Gemma DarlingtonActivities & Ideas, Early Development, Nature & Outdoor Play, Play & Socialising

Summer is here, pack your bathers and towel, it’s beach time! A favourite place of many Australians, the beach is treasure trove of opportunities for play, adventure, motor development, regulation and relaxation, learning and all-round fun. Between the surf, sand and sun it is a place to play, relax, be calm and make memories.

The natural environment of the beach has so many benefits on development and social and emotional wellbeing. Children (and I encourage all adults to do this also) dig holes, build sandcastles, bury their legs and feet, run, jump and crash. Fingers and hands become the most useful digging and construction tools and the sand, water, seashells and seaweed are the tactile rich construction materials.

Play and fun at the beach like this is an all enriching experience. It engages the entire body in physical exercise, stimulates every sensory system and promotes cognitive and functional development. Here’s a few reasons why spending time at the beach is one of the best things you can do:

Moving across the uneven soft and hard sand- running, walking, crawling is a form of heavy work which builds and strengths body awareness.
Moving and swimming against the resistance of the water requires more muscle power than walking on land, so it quickly builds strength, coordination, balance and endurance.
It is also an opportunity for free play, a space to let imaginations run wild. Children are free to develop play themes and it encourages families to spend more time with each other, outside.
Children also often congregate together enabling the opportunity to work on their social skills and use their curiosity to explore, find new things and get creative, all promoting social development.
With some supervision, the beach is a safe place where children can play with little boundaries and rules. From this, they develop a stronger sense of self and self-confidence by assessing their own risks, making choices, problem solving and getting to play through their own bodies where they learn what they and their bodies are capable of.
Children become responsible for their own enjoyment and creating their own adventures with other children and their parents. Children seek this out and when engaged in this, positive neurochemicals are released helping with reducing stress.
Learning occurs through acting on objects and materials in the environment. The beach offers cognitive stimulation opportunity in bucket loads. It teaches concepts like cause and effect, how the water moves and behaves, how water soaks into the sand, sinking and floating.
Being at the beach is calming and regulating and can have a positive change on behaviour.
Children build resilience and more positive relationships are developed with those you spend time with on the beach as they are less pressured for time.
Considering the natural sensory environment of the beach, it is clear how it can support regulation of the sensory and emotional systems. There is consistent white noise from the crashing of the waves, tactile input from the water, wet sand, dry sand, feeling of the warm sun on skin, the colour of the blue/green ocean and lots of things to look at and watch like the flow of the ocean. So much multisensory processing is happening that enables children to build associations with the sensory input, habituate to this input and achieve a level of calm suitable to what it going on. They learn quickly what is important information to register and act upon and what information can be filtered out whilst concentrating on playing or exploring.

So, over the holiday season, make spending time at the beach a regular thing with your loved ones. If you are already doing this give yourself a pat on the pack, you are participating in one of the most enriching environments to support brain development, social and emotional development and functional development. All in all, the joy experienced by all individuals spending time at the beach is restorative for wellbeing and bonding with others.