The Ranch segment on July 14 centered around the importance of play. If you've been listening to the morning show at the Ranch (99.1 FM in Simi Valley, CA), you've heard the sounds of adults at play. Actually, Ashley and Brad are hard at work, but they're having fun with it. The same is true with children. Their bodies, especially their brains, are hard at work while they play.
In this day of entire television networks designed for babies and millions, probably billions, of dollars' worth of toys designed to stimulate their brain growth, all kids really need is to do is play with you. The very nature of interacting with you is where the action is. While they benefit from playing with a variety of toys, listening to your language, watching your hands and your facial expressions is the bulk of the benefit.
In this day of entire television networks designed for babies and millions, probably billions, of dollars' worth of toys designed to stimulate their brain growth, all kids really need is to do is play with you. The very nature of interacting with you is where the action is. While they benefit from playing with a variety of toys, listening to your language, watching your hands and your facial expressions is the bulk of the benefit.
Fully 80% of the ultimate volume of a baby's brain is present at birth. During the first months and years of life, the brain cells sprout dendrities and axons in order to communicate with other brain cells and the brain becomes heavier with their weight. We need these dendrities and axons to get busy growing in order for baby to learn language so they can develop reasoning skills. Baby needs to develop motor skills in order to explore the "natural world".
So, what is this idea of the "natural world"? It's just that...the things that happen naturally make up the "natural world". When the ball that baby is holding drops again and again, they learn the "cause and effect" of dropping things. They'll later come to learn that the dynamic of the ball dropping is called gravity and even later, they'll learn the formula for determining how fast things fall.
When you help them stack blocks and you say, "The biggest yellow one is first, then the smaller blue one is second and the smallest red one is third", you are giving them a world of information. You are teaching color, size and ordinal counting. Wow. Sequencing is born. If you roll the ball, but the cube doesn't roll, they have the chance to observe the properties of the reasons behind those actions. In the natural world, things that are round roll and things that are square don't roll quite so easily. Ta da!
They learn fine motor skills and begin to train their visual perceptual systems. They learn to coordinate their body movements in order to reach the ball.
Rapport between parent and child begins to take shape as the interactions encourage patience and understanding. Bonding is intense during this time and baby may not be able to tolerate extended periods of this intensity, so spread the play times out over the course of the day.
Babies and young children learn to approach tasks in different ways which is critical for "cognitive flexibility" and adaptation. If they can't do it one way, show them another. They'll develop a rich menu of alternatives to get any job done if you teach them "how" to think.
When you help them stack blocks and you say, "The biggest yellow one is first, then the smaller blue one is second and the smallest red one is third", you are giving them a world of information. You are teaching color, size and ordinal counting. Wow. Sequencing is born. If you roll the ball, but the cube doesn't roll, they have the chance to observe the properties of the reasons behind those actions. In the natural world, things that are round roll and things that are square don't roll quite so easily. Ta da!
They learn fine motor skills and begin to train their visual perceptual systems. They learn to coordinate their body movements in order to reach the ball.
Rapport between parent and child begins to take shape as the interactions encourage patience and understanding. Bonding is intense during this time and baby may not be able to tolerate extended periods of this intensity, so spread the play times out over the course of the day.
Babies and young children learn to approach tasks in different ways which is critical for "cognitive flexibility" and adaptation. If they can't do it one way, show them another. They'll develop a rich menu of alternatives to get any job done if you teach them "how" to think.
When you describe to baby the kinds of things you are working with such as a camera, your cell phone, a bowl, cereal, shoes, whatever, you may not think they understand, but oh, they do. They learn that "things" have names and those "things" have functions. The more you "mediate" the world to them, the more connections they make between "how" things work in the natural world.
Let's go back to the idea of sequencing. Sequencing is critical to just about everything in life. For the next 10 minutes or so, pay attention to what you are doing. Notice the sequence of events in your actions. You don't get in the shower and THEN take off your clothes, do you? This is why the words associated with the FIRST step, THEN, the NEXT step, THEN the NEXT step and the LAST step are critical. Babies learn that everything has an order to it.
They make the connections through the experiences that you provide them. Sitting them in front of the television cannot duplicate this interaction and it cannot duplicate the kinds of learning that takes place.
When you play with them and offer language and many opportunities to observe the blocks tumbling again and again and you are bored out of your mind, just watch your baby. They delight in the predictability of what you are doing. Every time those blocks fall, they are making the connection between the "what" and the "why" of it all. They learn the predict what will happen. When they get bored with it, it's time to move on. They have become "saturated" with the activity for now....
They make the connections through the experiences that you provide them. Sitting them in front of the television cannot duplicate this interaction and it cannot duplicate the kinds of learning that takes place.
When you play with them and offer language and many opportunities to observe the blocks tumbling again and again and you are bored out of your mind, just watch your baby. They delight in the predictability of what you are doing. Every time those blocks fall, they are making the connection between the "what" and the "why" of it all. They learn the predict what will happen. When they get bored with it, it's time to move on. They have become "saturated" with the activity for now....
| Playing involves both external and internal language. Internal language is thought and thought requires vocabulary. When you interact with your children, you label and describe which expands their word knowledge. They learn concepts such as same and different. They learn to categorize and classify. This baby is reaching out to his dad's mouth to experience everything he can about the communication. His eyes are directly fixed on his dad's face and this is where baby learns prosody or the rhythm of language and make connections between the sounds of language and the associated facial expressions. Very powerful, indeed. |  |
When kids play, they also learn social skills. They learn about turn-taking and fairness. They learn about the rules and how to apply them. They also learn emotional regulation in the form of tolerating frustration, learning to wait for their turn and ways to encourage one another to do their best.
Boys and girls have different styles of play. For boys, competence on the playground is the "currency" of elementary school whereas for girls, language, fantasy and rule development highlights their play. No matter what kind of play they are engaged in, they are sure to learn important life skills.
Your baby has a very short "baby life" as do toddlers. Pay attention to them. Limit cell phone use when you are in their company. You can't believe how quickly the time will come when they ignore you to be on their cell phones. Baby and toddler brains have a limited amount of time to grow in these early years. Make a choice about how you want them to spend it.
Oh, and as for those wonderful bouncy "loungers" where babies spend a great deal of time, limit that, too. Babies need to be on their tummies to give them another view of the world and to increase their neck and core body strength. If they don't have strength, they won't learn to crawl competently. Crawling is critical. Research (and frankly, the 23 years' worth of experience that I've had in private practice) reveals that babies who don't crawl are more vulnerable to learning and developmental problems than the babies who are competent crawlers!
Oh, and as for those wonderful bouncy "loungers" where babies spend a great deal of time, limit that, too. Babies need to be on their tummies to give them another view of the world and to increase their neck and core body strength. If they don't have strength, they won't learn to crawl competently. Crawling is critical. Research (and frankly, the 23 years' worth of experience that I've had in private practice) reveals that babies who don't crawl are more vulnerable to learning and developmental problems than the babies who are competent crawlers!
Only you know how demanding your life is. I'm not judging, I just wanted to give you some perspective from baby's point of view.
TTFN, Claudia
TTFN, Claudia
