Five Benefits of Having a Climbing Frame in your Garden
Climbing frames are a great way to keep children entertained for hours at a time as they swing, jump and balance with their friends. As well as being lots of fun, these enthralling activities and challenges can help to stimulate learning and development among children. Here is our pick of the most important ways in which using a climbing frame regularly could benefit your child in the long run.
1) Physical Benefits
Playing on a climbing frame gets children moving. Because they’re having so much fun, children often won’t even realise the extent of the physical exercise that they’ve undertaken. Children who regularly play on a climbing frame will benefit from an improvement in their fitness levels and they’ll enjoy using the equipment to test their balance and agility.
Games such as tag are a great form of cardiovascular exercise because they require children to run from one piece of equipment to another, and they can use different parts of the climbing frame as ‘home’ or ‘base’. Many climbing frames feature a climbing wall which will provide a great full body workout to children of all ages. Monkey bars are an exciting challenge for children who are slightly older, as attempting to master them will work their arms and shoulders.
2) Social Benefits
Another benefit of having a climbing frame in your garden is that it’s a great way for your child to make friends and bond with their peers. They’ll be the talk of their school or nursery class and their friends will always want to come round and join in with the fun.
Spending time with other children will help your child to learn valuable social skills that will stay with them for life. They can watch their peers as they play and learn from their triumphs and weaknesses. Group interaction is the best way to teach young children about sharing and waiting their turn, and they’ll learn to exercise while they let others have a turn on the swings or slide.
3) Self Confidence Benefits
Climbing frames with different features such as rope ladders, climbing walls and monkey bars will encourage children to overcome their fears of these new challenges, and successfully master them. This sense of accomplishment will be really rewarding for children and will lead to a boost in confidence and self-esteem. Many climbing frames also have spaces for role play which can really help more shy children to come out of their shell and help them get used to speaking in a group.
4) Mental Benefits
Regular use of climbing frames can help a child’s brains to develop. Learning about the world around them through sensory experience and motor activities can drastically advance children’s cognitive functioning. This will particularly benefit children under the age of six, whose mental abilities are already in the process of rapid development. As well as improving spatial and directional awareness, the methods used in climbing will increase children’s problem solving abilities and help to develop their memories.
5) Benefit of Safety
Garden climbing frames will allow your child to feel independent and let them enjoy and explore outdoors, while still being in close range of the supervision of their parents. You won’t need to worry about them getting in to trouble or being injured at the house of a friend or at a play facility in another neighbourhood, because they’ll be able to participate in adventure play from the comfort of home. You’ll be able to get on with tasks in the house or garden and go about things knowing where your children are and that they are safe at all times.
