How Play with Peers Can Facilitate Developmental Domains of Children
Symbolic play has close connection with children’s expression of their views, senses and needs. It is well-known that one of the most important integral parts of intelligence is symbolic thought. Watching a child’s play might be useful for understanding the children’s strategies and ways of problem solution.
It has been discovered that children can convey certain features of an object to another object. For instance, if a girl wants to make a bed for her doll, she will find the most suitable box, which will serve as a bed. This phenomenon, which is called symbolic distancing, is especially important in the context of developmental delays. There are children who cannot really distinguish fantasies from reality. For teachers and peers, it is useful to support individual players making them cooperate. It might be especially helpful in cases of autism.
Symbolic play is always dependent on the cultural and linguistic background of children. Due to certain family expectations, a child may prefer an individual play because of his or her own needs. Early childhood programs are very important for the development of children coming from diverse linguistic and cultural background.
A curriculum focusing on play is especially important for children who find it difficult to solve problems. Among these children, one can find boys and girls with developmental delays, as well as children who suffer from social and emotional disabilities. Lack of flexibility is typical for children of this kind: their reaction to others can be rigid. However, it is practical to encourage peers to cooperate in order to facilitate their development. When one child lacks some skills, the other one may become the best teacher in the world, better than professional teachers. Moreover, there is an opinion that a teacher’s presence might be useless or even harmful, hindering children during their negotiation process. Researchers have found out that when children who are less capable or just not old enough play with those who are older and more sophisticated, the development of the first ones considerably accelerates.
It is obvious that all children are different because of the differences at the cultural and family level. For a teacher, it is preferable to be aware of a child’s background in order to take into account his or her background peculiarities. Piaget pays attention to the factor of social autonomy and heteronomy. Moral autonomy implies the necessity of self-government; moral heteronomy takes place when a child needs to be governed by others.
During the process of play, children have an opportunity to have various emotions, such as joy, sadness, curiosity, excitement, jealousy, and others. Consequently, play is an important part of emotional development. Play reflects a certain microcosm where the abovementioned emotions take place. Children may use their past experience in their fantasies. Sometimes they try to ‘rewrite’ some things that have happened to them before. Modern theorists pay special attention to the moment when a child begins to attend school because this stage involves a wide range of emotions and experiences including humiliation, confidence, or jealousy.
Parten classified children’s play as onlooker behavior, solitary, parallel, and two kinds of group play. Onlooker behavior takes place in cases when a child is an observer and not an active participant. Solitary player does not interact with other children, being the only participant in the play. Parallel play happens when children use the same material for their play, but they do not employ any common structured scheme; their play is not regulated. Parten pointed out two forms of group play. The first one is known as associative play: children share materials, but they do not really cooperate with each other. The second type of group play is characterized by visible negotiation between participants, who adhere to certain roles.
Numerous studies show that playing with peers is important for children’s development. Every particular type of play develops certain skills and facilitates individual development of a child.
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