Are you desperate to get your kid to play even just half an hour by themselves?
Did you buy them tons of toys hoping it will keep them busy?
And are you now even more desperate because they still don’t seem to play with anything for more than a few minutes before they start looking for you?
You’ve made a mistake but you’re not alone.
All parents fantasize about their children playing independently. And most parents proceed to buy too many toys hoping it will make a difference.
It does, but in the opposite direction than the one we hope for.
From overstimulation to inhibiting the repetitive play that fosters learning, toy excess has many downsides.
But here’s another one that we aren’t aware of.
The more toys a child has, the less time they spend playing with them. Why is that?
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Play’s Anatomy
Children are little explorers so they never jump straight into play.
With every new toy they get their hands on, they must first discover it.
And toy discovery is a process that researchers divided into two stages.
Actual play is only the second stage. What comes before it, you wonder?
Enter exploration.
Toy discovery involves two stages: exploration and play, says pediatric psychologist Dr. John Richer from John Radcliffe hospital.
With a new toy, kids:
- First, explore it, to find out what it does;
- Second, play with it, to find out what they can do with it.
The more toys they have, the more time they allocate to exploration rather than just play.
Remember Dee Dee making it to Dexter’s laboratory and asking herself Ooooh, what does this button do?
Didi was in the exploration stage of toy discovery (and self-destruction, but that’s for another story).
Fewer toys give children more time to play. When coupled with a distraction-free environment, they also develop creativity.
Image by iStockPhoto.com
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How Can You Help Your Child Play for Longer?
Instead of overwhelming them with toys, overwhelm them with attention.
Fill your child’s cup with genuine connection.
Stand by their side until you notice them slipping away from you and searching for their toys.
That’s your cue that you’ve answered their needs for closeness and contact. They’re now free to begin playing by themselves.
In Rest, Play, Grow — Making Sense of Preschoolers (Or Anyone Who Acts Like One), Deborah Macnamara suggests a few strategies that “give rise to play”.
She begins her list of four with the most important item, which is to “answer their hunger for contact and closeness”:
How do we encourage a child to spend their time playing? […]
Playtime needs to be prefaced with contact and closeness from an attachment figure so that a young child’s relational needs are satiated.
It is helpful to think of a young child as having an attachment fuel tank that needs to be topped up to overflowing before play can happen.
Their attachment tanks can quickly get depleted, especially from ages 2 to 3, and for more sensitive kids.
As a parent provides for their attachment needs, they can wait until the child pushes them away, suggesting they are full.
Before your child can play by themselves with the few toys you offer them, they need to be with you.
Make no mistake, though!
That time you spend together isn’t just for fulfilling their attachment needs. It helps your child thrive so much that it can literally shift their life toward success later on.
One study shows children with few toys, whose parents spend more time reading and playing with them, often surpass the children with richer backgrounds.
The time spent with your kids is the best investment. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but when you do have the time, you have to be present.
It’s hard because grownups have forgotten how to play.
Mothers, in particular, find it difficult to get down on the floor and just play.
Fathers are more likely to get into child mode when they have the time or energy. But even for them, it’s a bit uncomfortable at first, when they’re not used to it.
Image by iStockPhoto.com
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Help! How Do I Play With My Child?
Let them lead. Pretend you’re clueless. Play it dumb. Play it sick.
One of these is guaranteed to work. You might even go ahead and tell them: honey, I’ve got 20 minutes to be all yours. We can play whatever you want. What should it be?
Then you get to watch their eyes twinkling and before you know it, they’ll tell you what you need to do.
Sometimes, when I only have 20 minutes, I set a timer. If I have more time, I don’t bother with setting any timer and just go with it.
If you’d like to have a little bit of rest while playing (yes, you can), try the following suggestions:
This Is How You Play With A Child While Keeping Your Body Horizontally
Animals come to the rescue.
medium.com
Dr. Cohen is convinced that anyone can be a playful parent. And he comes up with some brilliant ideas that will get you inspired for a whole year.
Try letting your child take the lead. Or surprise them with one or two ideas from the above book.
In time, you’ll notice what they enjoy in particular.
They’ll start asking you what to play with them. Or you’ll accidentally discover new and unexpected ways to play together.
Once he saw this bird, he instantly asked that we play a game where he’s the mother bird and I’m the birdie.
We go through our day play-pretending this for hours.
Whenever he’s misbehaving, I get to remind him, in a childish tone, that he’s the mother and he’s supposed to be a role model. Works like a charm 😈
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You don’t know what you’re capable of until you try it.
And isn’t it liberating to learn that you don’t need to spend more to help your child make baby steps towards their play independence?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com