Best-selling author and child development expert, David Elkind provides parents with an understanding and appreciation of the powerful role of play in healthy emotional and academic development. In modern childhood free, unstructured play time is being replaced more and more by academics, lessons, competitive sports and passive entertainment. While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant learning, child development expert David Elkind reassures us that imaginative play goes far to prepare children for academic and social success, perhaps further than the panoply of educational products geared towards youngsters. To restore play's good name, best-selling author and internationally-known educator David Elkind shows how creative, spontaneous play fosters healthy mental and social development and sets the stage for academic learning. For example, children learn mutual respect and cooperation through role-playing and the negotiation of rules, which in turn prepares them for successful classroom learning.In simply playing with rocks, a child could discover properties of counting and shapes, and even a toddler's babbling is an important precursor to language. Finally, Elkind suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives, at home, at school and in the larger community.