Play Behavior
QUICK LOOK AT THE CHAPTER AHEAD
During early childhood, children engage their world symbolically.
Pretend play is a major characteristic of this developmental period.
Play is an activity that children enjoy and one that contributes to all aspects of development: physical, intellectual, and psychosocial.
Piaget believed that children engage in three types of games: practice, symbolic, and games with rules.
Freud believed that play allowed children to overcome the traumatic events in their lives.
Erikson interpreted play to be a means of coping with the different psychosocial issues of childhood.
TERMS
Games with rules
Play
Practice games
Repetition compulsion
Symbolic games
Children cherish their play. Shouting, running, chasing each other, enjoying games, engaging in make-believe, and exploring their worlds—children love to have fun.
During early childhood, children engage their world symbolically: letting one thing represent another, adopting different types of roles, and indulging in fantasy and pretend activities.During early childhood, children engage their world symbolically: letting one thing represent another, adopting different types of roles, and indulging in fantasy and pretend activities. Children may pretend to drink from play cups, or feed a doll with a spoon, or pretend a box is a truck. Pretend play is a major characteristic of this developmental period. Play also becomes more social, with interactions with other children becoming more important.
DEFINING PLAYSeveral key elements of play contribute to its definition:
Several key elements of play contribute to its definition.
Play must be enjoyable and valued by the player.
Play has no extrinsic goals; that is, play is intrinsically motivated.
Play is spontaneous and voluntary. No one forces children to play; they freely choose it.
Play demands that children be actively engaged.
Play has systematic relations to other behavior that is not play.
Here we define play as an activity that children engage in because they enjoy it for its own sake. Children play in a wide variety of situations: alone or with others, with objects, and with ideas. Children’s play may be simple, but it also demonstrates great skill and dexterity in complicated patterns (Table 43-1).
Here we define play as an activity that children engage in because they enjoy it for its own sake.
EXPLANATIONS OF PLAYIn his book Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood (1962), Piaget stated that children initially use their physical activities to build their cognitive structures (see Chapter 3). When children continue these physical acts for the amusement in them, however, Piaget believed they were playing. Sooner or later, children grasp for the pleasure of grasping, and swing for the sake of swinging.
In his book Play, Dreams, and Imitation in Childhood (1962), Piaget stated that children initially use their physical activities to build their cognitive structures.
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