September 1987 Child Care Information Exchange 1

Super babies. Learning the basics inpreschool. Keeping five year olds out ofkindergarten because "they are not ready tolearn." State-sponsored programs for allfour year olds. Educational toys for infants.

These approaches to infants and youngchildren today reflect the public's inter-est in schools teaching the basics, thestate's effort to give all children a headstart in learning, and parents' commit-ment to provide their children with anadvantage in an ever more competitiveworld. They also reflect a widespreadbelief that young children can andshould learn more earlier.

Not everyone agrees. Child psycholo-gists such as Bruno Bettelheim advocateanother approach: play.

Is play critically important for the nor-mal development of children 0 to 8?Why? Is play even more critical in aworld of computers, gifted programs,and super babies? If so, how can educa-tors and parents encourage it?

A lot of what is passed off as play –educational play with educational toys;games that teach academic concepts;and puzzles for matching words, num-bers, and colors – is not play at all.

What is play? Play involves a free

label the colors of their paints, insteadof using the paint to create a picture, arenot playing. And a teacher who tells alittle girl, "You can't be a daddy," whenshe plays in the dress-up area doesn'tunderstand play.

If play is free choice, self-directed, andvoid of adult reality, how can it be animportant activity for children learningto be adults?

This question is asked by more andmore parents and teachers, who believechildren's play is a waste of time, uned-ucational, taking valuable time awayfrom more important activities, andallowing children to hide in fantasyplay instead of facing the realities of theadult world.

The experts claim play is, in fact, thebest preparation for adulthood espe-cially in this highly technological, com-petitive society of ours. Play allowschildren to play with all the new con-cepts – social, emotional, moral, andintellectual – they are learning sorapidly as they develop. Children havenever been exposed to so much, soearly, as are children today. Play helpschildren make sense of and internalizethis information.

Getting Back to the Basicsof Children's Play

by Francis Wardle

choice activity that is non-literal, self-motivated, enjoyable, and process ori-ented. Critical to this definition is thenon-literal, non-realistic aspect. Thismeans external aspects of time, use ofmaterials, the environment, rules of theplay activity, and roles of the partici-pants are all made up by the childrenplaying. They are all based on thechild's sense of reality.

Thus two children go into the sittingroom, put on their parents' coats, and sitat the coffee table. The little boydeclares, "I'm mommy at the restau-rant." The girl continues, "And I'mdaddy, and we're celebrating ouranniversary." They then pretend to eat achicken dinner, using Lego blocks torepresent food. Play is engaged in bychildren because they enjoy it – it's self-directed. Once they get bored, they willno longer play, or will change their play.Children do not play for a reward –praise, money, or food. They playbecause they like it. Children build atree fort because they enjoy the activity,not the product (in fact, once the fort isbuilt, it’s soon forgotten).

Children who compete to make the bestwooden ship are not playing. Childrenwho are told they must use the blockwith an "A” on it to create a word arenot playing. Children who are asked to

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2 Child Care Information Exchange September 1987

servient role. In this way the childrenlearn what it’s like to be the other per-son in a real life situation. Because playlacks the pressure of product, evalua-tion, and time frames, children are freeto try out new roles.

They also learn to adjust their own rolesfor the good of the play activity. Youcan't have two children directing theactivity. They learn to repress their indi-vidual wishes for the good of the group.

Many play activities, especially onesthat require children to cooperate – ballgames, swings, skipping – teach chil-dren how to work together, how to taketurns, and how to reciprocate.

Social skill development is closelyrelated to moral development. One pre-requisite for moral development is theability for a child to put himself in theother child's shoes. Another is for thechild to realize he needs to follow somebasic rules for the good of the group ifhe wishes to continue to play. Thus playhelps children through the complexprocess of moral development.

Control of the environment

A playing child selects toys and playmaterials to create an interesting activ-ity. As he gets bored, he will either selectnew materials or use the original ones innovel ways. Because a child does notlike being bored, and because play isself-motivated, the child will continuallyselect and manipulate materials in theenvironment to keep from being bored,to stay stimulated. He learns how tocontrol his environment for his own use.The more varied and flexible the playmaterials, the more extensive play usewill be made of them by the child.

In a world of passive TV watching, thisactive learning through play is critical.

Practice

Jean Piaget, the Swiss cognitive psycholo-gist who developed a much accepted the-ory of intellectual development,maintains infants and young childrenlearn new concepts through a tandemprocess: discovering the concept and thenpracticing it. Thus a child who discoversa rubber ball bounces when it is droppedwill repetitively bounce the ball until thisnew idea is internalized in his mind. Thechild must internalize this new conceptbefore he can discover another one. Thusplay is critical to concept development.

Abstraction

Our world is filled with abstract symbols.Words are abstractions for things andideas. Letters are abstractions for sounds,numbers for quantity. Three can meanthree apples or three wars. Yet youngchildren live in a concrete world. Motheris one person who feels and cares for theinfant. Dog is grandpa's longhaired Eng-lish sheepdog. Playing is the process achild uses to slowly learn to move from areliance of the concrete object in all histhinking to manipulating abstract con-cepts in his mind. Thus the doll at thecenter initially represents the boy's babysister, later is any baby that needs to becomforted, and, finally, a teacher mightsay, "Is that your baby?," as the boy justrocks his empty arms.

Blocks are used to create cities; a bananais a telephone; a Lego block is an apple.Eventually the child can talk about cities,telephones, and apples without thesesymbols.

Social skills and moral rules

When young children play in the dra-matic play area at child care, they usuallyselect roles very different from who theyare. They might choose to be a parent orteacher and direct the activity. Or, a moreaggressive child might choose a sub-

Emotional release

Children use play to come to terms withtraumatic experiences in their younglives. A child who has witnessed deathwill reenact the event until it is nolonger so traumatic. A child who isabused will take his anger and frustra-tion out on a substitute object or mater-ial. A child who feels always at thebottom of the picking order will createsuperman play activities where he is incontrol. The child can work out his ownfear, anger, and frustration through afantasy world he creates and directs.

Many children are under extreme stress.Play provides the emotional releasefrom this stress.

Creativity and flexibility

Once a child has fully explored thebrightly painted wooden blocks –matching colors, dropping each blockon the carpet, and trying to roll themlike balls – she starts making all sorts ofcreations with them: towers, patterns ofalternating colors, walls or roads, andartistic patterns on the floor. She islearning objects and materials, onceunderstood, can be used as buildingblocks to create all sorts of fantastic cre-ations. They can be combined in differ-ent ways, mixed with other materials,and manipulated for her enjoyment.Through the non-pressure trial anderror of play she is learning the flexiblenature of objects and materials, andhow they can be combined to make lim-itless creations.

Play allows children to experiment withideas, language, rules, and moral con-cepts in the same way. Children can tryout more sophisticated language, ahigher order of moral reasoning, or anew way of sharing toys. If they don'twork, no one loses; if they do, the childcan then try them out in the real world.Play provides the flexibility for childrento experiment, grow, and discover, with-

September 1987 Child Care Information Exchange 3

out the pressure of failure or evaluation.

Physical play

There is an ever increasing amount ofresearch documenting the poor physicalability and condition of young childrentoday. Physical play activities – climbing,running, jumping, ball games, gymnas-tics, swimming – develop healthy bodieswhile teaching children to enjoy exercise.Because these activities are engaged involuntarily by the child, encouragingphysical play is a good way to offsetthese negative research results.

The child's world

Today's young child is controlled by theexpectations, schedules, whims, and rulesof adults. Child care schedules, nap time,meal times, homework, good behavior,appropriate social skills, academic suc-cess, and clean clothes are all adult expec-tations. Even children's TV programs areadult ideas of what children want andwhat will sell children's products. Play isthe only time a child can totally controlher world. She can ignore the time; usematerials as she wants; become whatevercharacter she needs to be; and create con-structions, dramatic fantasies, and socialinteractions that satisfy her at thatmoment.

This is critically important for a child'ssense of control and for her self-conceptdevelopment.

Remember, a child's reality is both verydifferent from the reality you and Iunderstand and is a child-created realityvery necessary for the child's well being.Because a child is being bombarded con-tinually by new concepts of science, lan-guage, rules, moral codes, and socialexpectations, she must be allowed to reg-ularly take refuge in the security of herown reality.

What can teachers and parents do? Teach-ers and parents of young children must

understand the critical importance ofplay in the normal development ofyoung children. They also need to knowwhat play really is and how it can beencouraged. Here are a few specificideas:

1. Understand that adult concerns aboutcleanliness, order, use of materials in avery narrow way, and returning all mate-rials to their appropriate storage spaceare in direct opposition to the child's playreality.

2. Children do not learn very specificacademic skills -- labeling of letters andnumbers, learning letter sounds, writingnumbers -- through play. Children willnot learn the alphabet using alphabetblocks. They will learn how to build fan-tastic structures.

Insisting on the child learning the letterson the blocks will actually slow downthe child’s play progress, which goesfrom an interest in the individual blocksto using them as material to create some-thing bigger and more exciting. Puzzlesrequiring children to place cut-out num-bers into their respective places in thepuzzle do not teach the child numbers.Be wary of educational toys.

3. Give young children lots of time,space, and materials to play. Short playperiods within the program day are notvery productive. Children should beencouraged to select toys and materialsfrom a large amount available to them.Don't restrict these choices.

4. Encourage fantasy play. In fact, andthis is not a contradiction, adults at homeand in the program setting should beinvolved in the play activity. Set the tone,play along. Also help expand the play byasking questions – What job do you do?Where do you work? What are we goingto eat for dinner? – depending on theactivity.

5. Don't use play as a reward, or removalof play as a punishment.

6. Insist centers and schools don't short-change your child's needs for a variety ofplay experiences by insisting on moretime for academic instruction, tests, learn-ing facts, and homework.

7. When selecting play materials, choosethose that are versatile and encouragechildren to play together. Balls, blocks,crayons, dolls, paper, woodwork tools,skip ropes, and dress-up clothes are good,inexpensive play materials. Be cautiousabout buying TV generated toys and toysdirected to parents (cute infant toys andeducational toys).

We need to get back to the basics, back toplay!

Francis Wardle, Ph.D., is director of AdamsCounty Headstart in Denver, Colorado.