Let's Play!
Do you remember pretending to be a teacher or a super hero, when you were a child? Being told to "go outside and play" or spinning in circles until you became dizzy? Guess what? All of those activities were important brain and body developing activities. Yup! Spinning until you nearly threw up was actually good for your body and brain!
Play is the business of children. It is vitally important for your child's physical, cognitive and emotional development to have many uninterrupted hours of play. Play that is quiet and alone, play that is loud and fast, play that pushes their body in new directions and play that forces them to use language in a new way with the peers and adults in their life, are all vitally important.
The skills learned during child-directed play are priceless. Yes, I said child-directed play! Let your child pick the toy, let them decide how long to play with it, and if it's a shared activity, make sure you have some toys of your own. Stop telling them what to do. Don't ask so many questions! Let them struggle with figuring out how to put an age appropriate puzzle together. Let them pretend to be the daddy even though they're a girl. Although you'll be following your child's lead during play, there are still many things you as the parent/caretaker can do to promote language and social skills.
As children grow, their play skills develop as well. Initially, play time is looking at lights or a mobile and waving their arms incidentally. At 6-9 months your child will bang toys , dump, refill and dump containers again. Around a year old, when first words develop, play becomes sightly more sophisticated. They'll hold a toy phone to their ear and pretend to have a brief conversation, or pat a baby doll while they hold it. Initially, children will play next to a peer. This is called parallel play. They'll play with the same toy but rarely, if ever, interact with each other. As they grow, play becomes more complex. Each child will have their role ("You're the daddy, I'm the baby") and language use becomes very important to the play. Play now has rules, board games and games that involve turn taking become more prevalent.
As you can see, play follows a sequence of development and goes along with cognitive and language development. But today's blog isn't about the development of play. It's about what you can do to promote play at each stage, therefor promoting language and cognitive development. I'm primarily talking about play time with toys, but know that these strategies work at the playground, while having a picnic or when your child is learning gross motor skills as well.
During infancy, coo and talk about the things your baby is looking at, "ooh, the lights are bright", "the cat is fluffy". Learn to read your baby's signs that they're ready to interact. When they start wriggling, grimacing and turning away, they are done interacting. If your baby is interested in interacting and is making cooing sounds, coo back. When my son was 3 months old we had long "conversations" daily, taking turns making cooing and gooing sounds back and forth. This is an early form of conversation. Allow for tummy time so you're child can develop back and neck muscles as well as gain a new perspective on their world. Have mobiles and soft toys for them to look at and possibly shake. Try out sock and wrist rattles. Say "shake, shake" as they kick their legs and move their arms.
Starting at about 6 months to a year, do what your child is doing. If they bang on the drum, you bang on the drum, if they're dumping and filling a bucket, you dump and fill a bucket. Make it into a game. Dump and fill with them using the words "in" and "out". Imitate their noises and attempts at words. When they point to an object, label it for them. You're job as the parent/caretaker is to play with them! Have fun! Make fun sounds and noises. Use the "daddy" voice or speak like a "baby". When playing cars, make the car noises, honking and "vrooming" as you go. These fun sounds catch and keep your child's attention and makes you the "fun one" that your child will want to play with. As they interact with you in extended play sequences, while you add words and make comments, their language skills grow. As they build a tower, build with them saying "on" each time you put a block on. When the tower falls say "OH NO, it fell"!" Once they start to say words, imitate what they say, always saying the word correctly. This will teach them how to say sounds correctly over time. Don't expect them to imitate you. Just hearing it said correctly will improve their production of sounds over time. Create safe spaces for them to explore physically. Remove dangerous items and block off areas you want to keep them out of. Bring them outside to explore grass and sand. Talk about the texture and hold their hands as they practice walking.
From 2-3 years old, as their play develops, add new ideas to keep the sequence going. Drive the car to the hospital because someone is sick, ask the chef to make a pizza, have the toy phone ring and tell them it's grandma on the other line. Add a word or two to the words and sentences they say. If your child says "car", you say "black car" or "the car's fast". Introduce simple board games around age three. This teaches patience, turn taking, and important cognitive/pre-academic skills such as numbers, colors and one-to-one correspondence. Initially, I always let my son win so he felt motivated to play. Slowly let the chips fall where they may and allow your child to lose. This helps them learn to win gracefully and lose gracefully...skills they'll need throughout their life. During outside time, trust your child's instincts. Make comments about how they are "under" the climber or "up so high". Using words to describe their actions like "high", "low", "up', "down", "kick", "fast" and "slow " will build their understanding and use of vocabulary. My philosophy is, if they can get up there on their own, they are OK to be there. I would stand close by and tell my son "you can do it, I'm here if you need me". This built his confidence in his abilities as well as allowed him to explore in a safe manner. I also told him no when he wanted me to put him higher on the climber than he could get to on his own.
Does this sound like a lot to remember? Are you overwhelmed yet? Don't be! This is meant to be fun for you and your child. Spend 5-10 minutes a day consciously using these strategies. Over time it will become more natural and you'll start doing it without even thinking about it. Initially it will take your conscious attention, but like all new skills, with practice it will become second nature. Am I suggesting you should spend all of your child's play time with them? Absolutely not! It is just as important that children learn to play independently, so balance times of joint play with solitary play. Now that your'e armed with the skills to improve language, cognition and social skills....
On your mark, get set, PLAY!!!
#play #vocabularydevelopemnt #cognitivedevelopment #mindfulness #languagelearning #talking
