Learning and playing - 2 to 3 years

Play now starts to put the world around her into perspective. Before, a game like a farmyard with animals was simply a matter of sorting the animals into different types and putting them in the right place. Now she sees it with different eyes. It introduces her to an aspect of life that she knows is different from the one she leads. After all, she is probably not surrounded by animals most of the time, so it helps to reduce the world to a scale she can handle.

• Play increasingly becomes an outlet for emotions. Even an action-man type of doll can bring out feelings of protectiveness and gentleness. She can also use the same toy to get rid of aggressive instincts that, if directed against other children, would be labelled naughty and antisocial.

• Play creates an interest in other people. If the dressing-up box has a cowboy's outfit and a nurse's uniform your child can dress up and play a role. Even if she just puts a hat on at an angle and wears a pair of high-heeled shoes too big for her she can pretend to be her auntie and by acting out what she thinks she does, she is getting insight into her life and into other people's lives.

• Play develops a sense of territory and ownership. Safeguarding a new and cherished toy or her own private place to play, like a den, tent or a play house, teaches a child to respect the belongings and privacy of others. Play stimulates curiosity, independence, an adventurous spirit and intellectual growth. Mechanical toys and puzzles stimulate analytical thought. Painting, drawing, making shapes with clay and fitting together patterns encourage creativity. As your child gets a little older, toys like a microscope, telescope, a chemistry set or a magician's outfit allow experimentation. These kinds of toys teach her to meet challenges and master difficulties.

• As your child gets older, play helps to teach her how to cope with events beyond her control. She may break a treasured toy, she may fail to make a mechanical toy work or she may not have the competence to do what she wants to do. All these experiences help her to learn how to cope with problems that arise in her world. There may be difficult choices to make but your child has to learn to make the decision. Play helps your child to get to know herself. As she gets older she has to interact with others, but before she can do that successfully she has to understand herself at least a little. Play allows her to discover her own physical and intellectual strengths and weaknesses.

• Play is an important aid in helping your child to mature. By the time your child is three she will be showing signs of having a sense of planning. She will keep her traffic jam of toy cars under the surveillance of a police car, with a pick-up truck standing alongside. This shows that she is thinking ahead. She'll start to exercise her capacity to delay when she plays with toys that need the glue to set or the clay to dry. If she is prepared to share one of her toys with a friend who reciprocates by lending your child one of hers, then she is being taught the value of give and take.

Dr Miriam Stoppard

New Babycare
Copyright © 2009 Dorling Kindersley
Text copyright © 2009 Miriam Stoppard

Posted 30.06.2010

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