For us adults, playing is a form of entertainment that we do through a specific activity that usually has a clearly identifiable beginning and end and which is carried out with the sole aim of having fun.
For the child, however, play represents the way in which he enters into a relationship with himself and with the world: by playing, the child develops knowledge, experiments and consolidates skills, builds his own identity, relates to others and to environment that surrounds him, processes situations, frees himself from tensions. In short, by playing, the child grows and trains to grow up.
And since play is closely connected with intellectual and psychological development, playing is an activity that changes over time as the child grows and, being "the most spontaneous habit of infantile thought" (J. Piaget), represents the tool primary to understand what is going on in his mind.
On the basis of the child's psychomotor development stages we can therefore distinguish as many "play stages".
This phase characterizes the first year of the child's life, a period in which knowledge of the world, and therefore also play, pass through bodily sensations and the very strong mediation of the adult who takes care of him: being in his mother's arms, lying with her on the carpet or playing on the bed, the child slowly learns new possibilities of movement and vocal expression starting from what he observes in the adult.
The games that the child prefers and which are suitable for this phase are all those that involve his own body and stimulate sensoriality and control over movements: the manipulation of objects of different consistencies and shapes, exploration through the mouth, observation of moving objects, repetition of certain patterns (e.g. game of peek-a-boo).
An essential activity in the first months is the baby's massage: the cuddle, combined with the sound of mum's (or dad's!) voice and continuous eye contact, not only stimulates the baby's senses or relaxes him, but helps to encourage the development of a an even deeper and more conscious bond between the child and the reference adult.
After the first year of life, the child begins to use objects more appropriately, no longer just to explore them but to "do something". The purpose with which they are usually used is their real purpose, whose action the child simulates: for example, he takes a spoon to pretend to eat, a brush to pretend to comb his hair.
He also begins to better master concepts such as object permanence (i.e. the fact that objects do not disappear just because he no longer sees them) and cause-effect relationships, which is why he finds games such as filling and emptying containers, opening and close drawers, turn lights on and off, group objects based on shape/color/size.
At this stage the child often plays alone, he is not yet able to coordinate with other children for shared play. He can appreciate the closeness of his peers, carefully observing the play of others and being stimulated by it, but his play still remains "in parallel".
Between 2 and 3 years old, children begin to use their imagination to use objects with a function different from their own: then the broom handle becomes a horse to ride, the banana becomes a telephone and the stick turns into a sword . Around this age the child also begins to be interested in playing with others in a cooperative way: in this way he is able to build more complex dynamics in which everyone plays a different role (mum and dad, teacher and classmates, doctor, ...) but they all follow the same plot. Through this type of play, the child can reconstruct moments of daily life that he has experienced and that perhaps he is not able to manage emotionally: by recreating and staging moments that are significant to him, he can relive his own experiences in a protected context (since it is playful ) and process situations and emotions better.
It therefore goes without saying that this type of play plays a key role in the child's development both from a cognitive point of view and from a social and emotional point of view.
It represents the last stage of the game, the most advanced one. These games (football, volleyball, cards, board games, ...) have pre-established and explicit rules which cannot be modified at any time as they represent the very essence of the game (unlike what happens in fantasy games where the rules can be agreed continuously). Here the range of possible behaviors is therefore much narrower and those who are not able to respect the rules are excluded. Furthermore, while fantasy play is a type of cooperative game in which everyone moves in a coordinated way to build the scene, albeit each with their own role, games with rules are competitive: there is one goal to achieve and only one of the participants (maximum one team) will win. Through this type of game, the child can therefore test his abilities and verify the improvement of his skills with important implications also on his self-esteem.
The fundamental role that play plays in the development process of children is therefore clear, but deciding to stop for a moment and play, with your children or among peers, is also good for you in adulthood.
We live in an era in which our days are full of "I have to do" and "I have to go", in which there is little room for enthusiasm, fun, imagination. And then we should defend it tooth and nail, a space in which to play, in which to relax, in which to simply "be", without necessarily "doing".
Just for the sake of having fun... and recharging.
Sabrina Berardo - Psychologist, @unapsicologanellorto
]]>The corner of the carpet or a roll of toilet paper, an empty bottle, a stick, some stones, some threads and so on and so forth. How often do we think, say or hear such phrases! How many times are children attracted by materials they find at home rather than by their toys! These objects are often defined as "loose parts", i.e. loose elements, disconnected from each other, elements that have no predetermined use for children.
Precisely by noticing children's interest in this category of objects to play with, deconstructed toys were born, which can transform into anything we want. The doll is a doll, the toy car is a toy car, the bear is a bear: these toys can become a doll, a toy car, a bear or infinite other elements. Children like to experiment, change the use of things, invent, move, test. Let's think for example about wooden cubes: each cube can be a person, an animal or an object, and these can also be built by assembling multiple cubes.
Deconstructed toys increase children's exploration opportunities, allowing them to become increasingly independent adventurers. A peculiarity lies in their adaptability to any age : the child will approach them in the most appropriate way.
These shapes and colors then become the objects of experimentation, activating reasoning and learning mechanisms. The discovery of the world and toys thus becomes more complex every day, up to the point of symbolism; we will therefore see the reproduction of small fragments of real life, which day after day will be transformed into complex stories full of details.
First of all, in unstructured games the protagonist is the child, and not the toy!
This allows the development of an active, curious and enterprising mind, trained to travel on the wings of fantasy and imagination. The child can get involved and learn through experience; he can ask himself questions, experiment and give himself answers, learning through trial and error; can develop their senses while having fun.
The unstructured game, then, allows the child's main mental functions to be strengthened: think, for example, of how much attention is paid to moving each cube, how many logical reasonings are experimented in designing the game, how free everyone is to put their own opinion into play. will. And let's not forget the ability to move in the surrounding world, understood as knowing how to store information and then fish it out and reuse it when needed.
Furthermore, deconstructed toys benefit both emotional and sensorimotor development.
When playing, the child brings out all of himself, all of his commitment, concentration and creativity. In particular, he stages emotions, experiences them, tells us about them and makes us participants in his experiences. He tells us his desires and expresses his needs. He does it in the way he likes most: while playing he can use wooden shapes, for example, to build, destroy, insert, stack, assemble, disassemble, observe, align, count, tell, order, etc. By doing so, he promotes himself and his sense of self-efficacy, i.e. confidence in his own personal abilities and the awareness of being able to succeed.
So let's encourage the autonomy of our children through deconstructed toys, which do not represent a single game, but represent them all... and let us be carried away with them on the wings of imagination!
With love, Alice Fantino - Psychologist
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