meta-dad

INTERVIEW: Dr. David Elkind – The Power of Play

Dr. David Elkind is a leading child-development expert and Professor Emeritus of Tufts University and his work has been published for over two decades. He has written a plethora of books on child development, and his latest effort is a meditation on the art and science of play as it pertains to the developing child. His latest book, “The Power of Play; Learning What Comes Naturally,” explores with thoughtful analysis and solid examples how unscheduled, imaginative play helps forge a solid and lasting path for both academic and social success for children.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to ask him a few revealing questions about the importance of kids playing. Yes that’s right, playing. He has reminded me of the importance of shutting off the television (and the computer for that matter) and grabbing a ball or fashioning a super-hero cape and sheparding those kids to the backyard or park.

Meta-DAD: As a new Dad of two boys (and another one on the way), I am very curious to find out – in a nutshell – what kind of impact healthy play has on a child’s development?

Dr. Elkind: Play is a basic human drive, which like love and work, takes different forms and serves different functions at different stages in the life cycle. Through self initiated play, children create new learning experience essential to healthy mental, emotional and social development.

MD: What should parents be sensitive to with regard to the way boy and girls play (both together and separately)?

Dr. E: Play should be constructive and joyful. If children are being destructive or fighting, parents need to step in.

MD: What are your feelings about role playing games? Specifically the “Cops and Robbers” or “Good Guys vs. Bad Guys” games that kids play? And separately, I am interested in what your feelings are on “horse-play”? Meaning that rough and tumble physical play that you find on playgrounds around the world.

Dr. E: Role playing is a healthy activity, children playing doctor or teacher are not really practicing to taken those roles as adults. They are dealing with the fact of being small and weak in comparison to adults. In role play they can be the adults and have the power and confidence that goes with it. It is a form of therapeutic play. Rough and tumble play is universal among boys and reflects the fact that boys relate to one another differently than do girls. Girls use language to express relationships while boys do so with physical contact. High fives are a case in point.

MD: What are the different types/categories of play and what are their advantages on a developing child?

Dr. E: here are many ways to categorize play. I talk about mastery play, wherein children learn new skills through repetition; Innovative play wherein children create new games, including dramatic play; Kinship play (the tendency of children to play with children of the same age even if they are strangers): and therapeutic play through which children work through anxiety and stress.

MD: Are there distinct links between language development and play?

Dr. E: Most dramatically in babbling. Through self initiated babbling children create all the sounds of language and are able to select out those that map on to the language of their caregivers. No on teaches a child to babble; it is a form of play essential to language growth.

MD: So essentially, kids babbling is their way of stumbling upon or practicing the phonemes or verbal building blocks necessary for sounding out words?

Dr. E: Exactly.

MD: When parents are at the toy store what kinds of things should we be thinking about when choosing a toy?

Dr. E: It depends upon the age. For infants and young children, look for a good set of wooden blocks and other toys that leave room for the child’s imagination. Books are important at all age levels and encourage fantasy and imagination. For older children, board games like checkers and Monopoly teach children strategies and ubteroersibak skills such as reading body language. It is best to avoid the “watch me” toys that offer little opportunity for interaction.

MD: Do you have any thoughts you want to share about computer games and/or video games?

Dr. E: There are so many different types of games it is difficult to generalize. Many games like simulation games are very educational whereas many puzzle games are not really educational but do exercise the mind in the way that crossword puzzles do. The shoot em up variety have little to say for themselves. They may be a way for some children to expend their aggression in a socially acceptable way, but we don’t have much evidence on this.

Other Reading by Dr. David Elkind:
The Hurried Child
The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice
Miseducation: PRESCHOOLERS AT RISK
All Grown Up and No Place to Go: Teenagers in Crisis
Blocks to Robots: Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom