The Importance of Adult Participation in Child Play

The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights states that every child has a right to play, just as he or she has a right to life, education, and health. Theorists such as Lev Vygotsky claim play helps children increase their ability to interact with others, practice taking on different roles, and develop creativity. Above all, through play, children master new skills and learn new information about the world.

Parents and Guilt
Too often, parents misunderstand studies about the benefits of play. They end up feeling guilty that they are not doing enough to guide their children's development. They worry that if they do not supply their children with the right play experiences at the right ages, their children will fall behind other children, fail at school, and ultimately fail at life!

Soon learning becomes a competition. By controlling the way their children play, parents attempt to attain a specific result-quantifiable success. Afraid that skipping any one activity will put their child behind other children, parents sign their child up for everything and fill any free time left with rote flashcard drills.

Activities such as ballet lessons, music lessons, karate lessons, foreign language classes, and participation in sports teams are all wonderful taken one or two at a time. However, if you pile too many on at once, you neglect one of the most important developmental opportunities that you can offer your child-open-ended, child-driven play that is shared at certain times with you.

The Benefits of Play
Children learn essential life skills by copying adult role models. From the moment your child is born, you are their first and best toy and playmate. As they grow older, connecting with them through shared play experiences strengthens the bond between parent and child and keeps lines of communication open even when daily schedules become more hectic and time together harder to arrange.

However, children also need time and space to explore the world and their imaginations by themselves. Adults must never take over playtime and direct a child's every action. As Kenneth R. Ginsburg (associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) and two committees for the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in a recent clinical report, "When play is controlled by adults, children acquiesce to adult rules and concerns and lose some benefits of play, particularly in developing creativity, leadership and group skills."

Choosing and using appropriate toys can help you understand when to engage actively in play with your child and when to let your child take charge...

Active Interaction 
For many toys, both you and your child must take an active role because the toy requires at least two players. For younger children, you can both take an active role in rolling or throwing balls back and forth. For older children, sports equipment such as bats, mitts, soccer balls, basketballs, and footballs can lead to hours of fun, physical activity, and unobtrusive lessons in taking turns, following the rules, good sportsmanship, and (if you play together against another opponent) cooperation and communication. Multi-player games (such as chess, checkers, Monopoly, or Jenga) can also reinforce these lessons.

Active Modeling and Passive Following
Childhood should be a journey, not a race, with plenty of time allowed along the way for investigations and discoveries. Get for your child what the American Academy of Pediatrics calls "true toys," ones that lead to open-ended play instead of one or two closed-ended outcomes that a child is rushed to master. Such toys include blocks, building sets such as Legos, costumes and props for dress-up and role-playing, dolls and puppets, people and animal figurines, toy playsets, play food, and toy vehicles.

With these sorts of open-ended toys, sit back at first and let your child examine them before you jump in with directions, instructions, or suggestions. Never assume there is only one right way to play with a toy. It is fine if your child serves building blocks for tea in teacups or tucks trucks into doll beds for naps. Providing your child with the physical and mental space needed to play around with the idea that these objects can be anything is exactly what your child needs.

Unless your child's play turns destructive, allow your child to take the lead when playing together with these toys. You can play alongside your child, but do not upstage or correct him or her. For role-playing, let your child assign the roles. Often, children want to be in power and order adults around in ways not allowed in real-life.

Pay attention to your child's interests and abilities and select toys accordingly. If your child does ask you for help, then you can model how to act out a certain scenario or demonstrate a useful strategy for connecting parts of a puzzle or a building set (for example, solving a puzzle by assembling its border first). If you notice your child is growing frustrated with a toy, evaluate whether the task at hand is too difficult. Perhaps the toy will be more appropriate a few months or even a year later.

One of the best things you can do during imaginative play is to help your child develop language skills. Comment on what your child is doing to introduce new vocabulary, saying things such as, "I see you parked the red tractor by the green block." Or you can gently encourage your child to talk about what he or she is pretending, asking questions such as, "What are you dressed as? What do you think a fairy/doctor/astronaut does?"

Solo Play
Some toys are great for a child to play with alone-those with what Montessori theorists call "control of error," where a child can tell by himself or herself if he or she is completing it correctly or incorrectly. It is good for a child to play imaginatively with the pieces of such a toy in ways different from the stated purpose of the toy, but it is also beneficial for him or her to figure out how to stack, order, or assemble it the right way. Toys of this sort include stackers, sorters, and puzzles. Parents can offer help if requested, but otherwise allow your child to master the toy alone and in his or her own time.

Many arts and crafts activities such as drawing, painting, beading, and clay play are also best pursued almost entirely alone by a child. As Susan Striker, author of Young at Art and the Anti-Coloring Book series, says, when children see an adult draw or create something, often they focus on copying that over and over to please the adult instead of developing their own, individual creativity.

Striker champions letting children make their own discoveries about each medium, regardless of the mess. That said, tidier parents can safely allow themselves to at least explain to a child how to use the materials, and then they can step back and let the child create whatever he or she wishes. An adult should never step in and correct a child when a child is creating art. It does not matter if lines are not drawn straight or if a clay person is missing feet. The process of creating, not the final product, is the important part at this stage.

What You Can Do 
As a parent, you can help children develop in so many ways. Play expert B. Caldwell notes that parents can support play by providing "time, space, materials, or social partners [such as siblings]." Just always keep in mind that, as Ginsburg says, the best way to ensure that your child develops into a wonderful adult is to "[share] pleasurable time together."