Child's Play

Play is an important part of the childhood development. It might look like just child's play, but toddlers are hard at work learning important physical skills as they gain muscle control, balance, and coordination. Each new skill lets them progress to the next one, building on a foundation that leads to more complicated physical tasks, such as jumping rope, kicking a ball on the run, or turning a cartwheel.Through play children learn about shapes, colors, cause and effect, and themselves. Besides cognitive thinking, play helps the child learn social and psychomotor skills. It is a way of communicating joy, fear, sorrow, and anxiety.

A study of how play develops in children was done by Mildred Parten in the late 1920’s. She observed children between the ages of 2 and 5 years and categorized their play into six types. The first four categories of play don't involve much interaction with others, while the last two do. While children shift between the types of play, what Parten noticed was that as they grew up, children participated less in the first four types and more in the last two - those which involved greater interaction.

In the first stage of unoccupied play, the child is relatively stationary and appears to be performing random movements with no apparent purpose. At this stage of play the child is not actually playing but seems to be more involved in observing

In solitary play the child is completely engrossed in playing by themselves and does not seem to notice other children. This stage of play is most often seen in children between 2 and 3 years-old. They may be content playing in a corner with their blocks. Other children may be around, playing in the same manner, but they will not interact with each other.

Onlooker play is the third stage. At this time a child takes an interest in other children's play but does not join in. May ask questions or just talk to other children, but the main activity is simply to watch. For example, an infant in the...