CreativePlay Plus: Ideas in Play and Child Development

Dealing with challenging behavior is one of the most stressful aspects of parenting. Decades ago “hitting” children was an acceptable response to their negative behavior.  As parents learned that physical punishment fails to prevent misbehavior, “hitting” became taboo and putting a child in “time-out” became the popular alternative.  In “time-out” a child is sent or taken to an isolated area where s/he is expected to remain for a specified period of time; the time spent in “time-out” typically correlates with the child’s age, (i.e. three minutes for a three year old; five minutes for a five year old.)

Time-Out became popular for the following reasons:

• It is a relatively easy way to interrupt unwanted behavior.
• It offers the adult a needed space away from the child so the adult can calm down.
• It helps the adult refrain from using physical punishment by providing an alternative approach of responding to a child’s misbehavior

While “time-out” is preferable to physical punishment, it has limitations:

• A child who is naturally loquacious may need to talk out loud in order to think through a situation; this child sorts out his/her thoughts as they are expressed to others.  Time-out alone will shut down this child’s thinking.
• A child who processes experiences with feelings and then later thoughts may shut down both thoughts and feelings when sent to “time-out.”
• If a child lacks information or skills, “time-out” alone will not provide them.
• “Time-out” may feel like the withdrawal of love or promote feelings of abandonment, both of which can be very frightening to a child.
• When children regard “time-out” as a punishment they often use their discomfort to blame the parent rather than learn fro the experience.

The ultimate goal with discipline is to have the child experience the uncomfortable feelings associated with making a poor choice and then learn from the experience. The following model will help achieve this:

• Provide the child with guidance and explain what is likely to occur.  For example, “If you leave your bike out in the street it’s possible someone might take it.”
• Allow the child to experience the natural consequences of his/her actions or behavior.
• Always model self control by remaining calm and composed without attributing blame or guilt to the child; blame or guilt decrease the likelihood that meaningful learning will occur.
• Offer much empathy when the child experiences an unpleasant outcome; you don’t have to agree with the child in order to understand and/or appreciate the child’s uncomfortable feelings.
• Assist the child in learning new strategies to prevent the same mistake or one of a similar nature to repeat.

Most parents will agree that mathematical skills are big deal.  So what do you do when your child doesn’t seem interested in numbers? Try this clever number match game from mommy blogger Allison at No Time For Flash Cards.  What we like about this game is that you can adjust it to be more or less challenging for kids depending on their development level.  The best part is you only need colored construction paper and a marker to get your math magicians learning!

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Great Bear Rainforest rip The choice between a play-based preschool and academic preschool can be agonizing for any parent. Ultimately, preschool should be a place where a love for learning is cultivated and children are given experiences to enhance their executive functioning skills (i.e. self control and attention skills). Executive functions is a psychological term used to describe the cognitive process that is involved in planning and monitoring what we attend to and what we do (“execute”) with this input.

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Recently, the New York Times The Stand film printed an article highlighting an empirically based preschool and kindergarten program, Tools of the Mind. One of the fundamental aspects of the Tools of the Mind program is its use of mature pretend play to develop self-regulation abilities while also preparing children academically for school.

“The ultimate goal of Tools of the Mind is not emotional or physical self-regulation; it is cognitive self-regulation — not the ability to avoid grabbing a toy from the kid next to you (though that’s an important first step), but the much more subtle ability to avoid falling for a deceptively attractive wrong answer on a test or to concentrate on an arduous mental task.”

So what is mature pretend play?

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Children participating in Tools of the Mind programs are asked to create a play plan at the start of each day. Children decide what characters they would like to play and what they would like to do. They record their plan by drawing a picture of themselves doing the action and then underneath they write “I am going to (action)” or draw squiggly lines to indicate each word. These play plans are designed to motivate children to become fully absorbed in the activity. This intense play work also allows children to practice using their attention systems. Most importantly, this mature pretend play help children take responsibility for their learning and reinforce habits of self-control.

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It’s back to school time!  Many parents are probably breathing a small sigh of relief.  Trying to think up ways to entertain your kids with creative play for nearly three months is never as easy by August as it is in June.

Now that your kids are about to head back to the classroom, it’s probably tempting to try and get them involved in lots of activities to keep them busy throughout the school year.  However, this is actually one of the things experts in the field of Creative Play warn against the most!

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Devour movie full David Elkind, in his book The Power of Play, writes that “Over the past two decades, children have lost twelve hours of free time a week, including eight hours of unstructured play and outdoor activities.”

According to Elkind, this is mainly due to the fairly new phenomenon of over-scheduling and over-structuring our kids’ days (and evenings!).  The trend is becoming more and more common, even at pre-school ages, as parents’ concern over their children’s intellectual development starts to trickle down to younger and younger kids.

Just remember, it doesn’t have to be that way.  Allowing your children open-ended “free” time gives them the chance to develop life-long skills, including problem solving and critical thinking, and encourages their innate curiosity and ability to learn without the pressure of a tightly scheduled and managed day.  And with all the research available on the benefits of creative play, you don’t have to feel guilty about allowing that unstructured time.  Just let them play, and you’ll soon see the benefits with your own eyes.

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A great time to start thinking about introducing fairy tales to children is around the ages of four to six-years-old. Fairy tales, like Cinderella and the Three Little Pigs, are wonderful classic stories with humorous as well as scary elements. Around the age of four, children begin to appreciate fantasy in books as they start to distinguish between what is real and what is “just a story.”

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three film Deep Red ipod Fairy tales are classic books to read to children and are also educationally and culturally important. These stories have been told over many generations and in various forms. Dr. Kessler recommends reading different variations of well known fairy tales in order to keep the story interesting and to tell it from different points of view. For example, The Wolf’s Tale

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is a version of Little Red Riding Hood, told from the wolf’s perspective. These variations often add humor and are important in helping children see there are multiple sides to the story.

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