Simple Things To Keep In Mind When Playing (Copy)
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.”
Play is more than just fun—it helps kids build creativity, social skills, and emotional resilience.
When I took my first psychology class, one of the things that struck me was how psychologists had explanations and names for things that I knew about, but never really understood or had thought about. Things like hindsight bias (thinking that after something has occurred that you had accurately predicted its occurrence) or availability heuristics (making judgments about the likelihood of an event based on how easily an example, instance, or case comes to mind).
I have the same type of reaction when I read studies examining how things we do as parents can affect a child’s development. We know certain things seem right or appropriate; yet, we may not always know why. I think back to the videos I used to post on social media of my boys when they were babies, horrified to think of the high-pitch tone I would have in those videos. Yet, findings of scientific studies provide some insight into these experiences and why we do them.
I mentioned in a previous blog post the importance of allowing your children to play during the current period. If you are having difficulty with some of the other demands you feel the need to meet, perhaps you can focus on continuing to foster your relationship with your child through play.
In light of this, I wanted to briefly review some recent findings that support the role of play in child development. The first study focuses on the concept of fostering social and dramatic play in our children, while the last studies I mention examine how we can engage with babies.
Social, Pretend Play
The first study looked at a program that emphasized structured social play in preschoolers. The authors point out that social dramatic play can be a way to target your child’s executive functioning skills, including self-control, selective attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, and planning. By targeting executive functioning, you can increase your child’s school readiness. Findings found that a program that emphasized social dramatic play contributed to better academic outcomes, a greater sense of community, as well as more kindness and helping behaviour.
This type of play may be useful to promote during the present situation, particularly if you have siblings that are similar in age. This would involve promoting paired activities that focus on cooperation and mutual support. It also involves pretend-play where kids take on roles that use language specific to the character and involve props (e.g. doctor, police officer). This is often a recommendation I also make to teachers: build activities that have the children work as a unit rather than foster competition, as competition can increase aggression.
Face-to-face and How we speak to babies
For parents who have babies, I want to mention two quick studies that can help guide interactions with your child. A recent study of brain activity during play between a parent and his or her child demonstrated that they could get “on the same wavelength”. This was accomplished through the use of a shared toy and via eye contact. Therefore, the idea for parents would be to emphasize face-to-face time with their babies. This concept of syncing has been studied in other scenarios, with findings showing that adults can sync with others when watching movies or listening to stories together.
A second study examined the effects of ‘parentese’, which has been examined in previous studies and involves the use of grammatical speech where parents communicate with their child using elongated vowels, a higher pitch, and a slower tempo that exaggerates tone. While previous findings have linked this form of communication to improved language outcomes, the authors of this study suggest that parentese actually serves as a form of social connection that facilitates things like turn-taking. Therefore, if you find yourself feeling self-conscious about how you sound in those videos you are sharing with friends and family, don’t (!!!), tell them you are merely following scientific recommendations!
Activities with Older Kids
While we adjust to the realities of social distancing, we can also look at emphasizing some interactions that are maybe easier to complete now that life has slowed down for some of us. This would include having the opportunity to have family meals on a more regular basis. Findings have found positive emotional gains when families share a meal together (this includes teen development as well). Additional activities you can try with older children include things like “book clubs”, where the family reads and discusses a book together. Finally, there is some evidence for positive outcomes to co-playing video games with older kids. This is better if the games involve working together to achieve a shared outcome.
I encourage you to leave room for some kindness and understanding for any struggles you may be experiencing. As we make room for these emotions and reactions, we can start to engage in mindful parenting, which involves being deliberate with our actions as parents. I am hoping that the information I reviewed can help you to make some informed choices and to emphasize certain things when you do spend time playing with your kids.
