Red Green Repeat Adventures of a Spec Driven Junkie

Playing Well with Others - Stages of Play

I’m watching Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore’s The Great Courses video on: Raising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids . These are some of my notes on Chapter 8 - Playing Well with Others.

Yet, putting young kids together don’t automatically mean they will just “play”. So, what gives??

Play is language of childhood; it is crucial for forming & maintaining friendships and there are four stages of play when children are playing together:

  1. Independent Play
  2. Parallel Play
  3. Associative Play
  4. Cooperative Play

Independent Play

This is the type of play where a child plays alone, indepenent of others.

Parallel Play

This play type is when children are playing with one another with no interaction between the children, they are just next to each other. Think: independent play sharing the same space. They may not even be doing the same type of play as each other.

Associative Play

This is the transition phase between parallel play and full cooperative play. Here, the children are doing parallel play with light interaction between them.

Cooperative Play

This is the type of play where children have a shared focus, or even “shared world” of what each other are doing in this world.

There are roles each take and coordinating who is who, who does what.

Conclusion

There is a development cycle for play with children - progressing from alone play to full on interactive shared world play. Putting kids together will not automatically mean they will be interacting with each other and creating worlds with rules.