Fr.

Vincent Crasta UNIT IV PLAY DEV ELOPMENT

SPC Puttur - BSW Dept - 2012

Meaning, definition of play: Play is a term so loosely used that its real significance is apt (appropriate/suitable) to be lost. Any activity engaged in for the enjoyment it gives, without consideration of the end result. It is entered into voluntarily and is lacking in external force or compulsion. According to Piaget: play consists of responses repeated purely for functional pleasure According to Bettelheim: play activities are those, having no rules other than those the player himself imposes and no intended end result in external reality. Categories of play:
1. Active Play: In active play the enjoyment comes from what the individual does.

Whether it is running just for the fun or constructing something with paints or clay. Children engage in active play less as they approach adolescence and have more home and school responsibilities and a lower energy level, owing to rapid growth and body changes. 2. Amusements (enjoys other to play): In passive play or amusements the enjoyment is derived from the activities of others. The player expends a minimum of energy. The child who enjoys watching other children play, watching people or animals on television, looking at the comics, or reading books is playing with minimum expenditure of energy. But the enjoyment may be equal to that of the child who expends great amounts of energy in the gym or on the playground. Stages in Play development: a. Exploratory stage: (investigative): Until babies are about 3 months old, their play consists mainly looking of people and objects and in making random attempts to grasp objects held in front of them. From then on their hands and arms come under enough voluntary control to enable them to grasp, hold and examine small objects. After they can creep, crawl or walk, they examine everything within their reach. b. Toy stage: Toy play begins in the first year and reaches a peak between 5-6 years. At first children merely explore their toys. Between 2-3 years they imagine that their toys have life qualities- that they are capable of acting, talking and feeling. As children develop intellectually they are no longer able to endow inanimate objects with life qualities and this dampens their interest in toys. After entering school, most of children regard toy play as baby play. c. Play stage: After children enter school, their play repertoires greatly increase giving this stage its label. At first, they continue to play with toys, mainly when alone and in addition they become interested in games, hobbies and other more mature forms of play. d. Day dream stage: As children approach puberty, they begin to lose interest in the play activities they formerly enjoyed and spend much of their play time in daydreaming.
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Characteristics of Childrens play

1. Play is influenced by tradition: Young children imitate the play of older children, who have

imitated the play of the generation of children preceding (previous/earlier) them. Thus in every culture, one generation passes down to the next the forms of play it finds most satisfactory. The influence of tradition is apparent (clear/ evident) in the seasonal patterns of childrens play. Roller skates, jumping ropes, jacks, and bicycles come out on the first warm days of spring. With the approach of winter, children look forward to snow for sledding, snowball fighting, ice skating etc., 2. Play follows a predictable pattern of development: From early baby hood to maturity, certain play activities are popular at one age, and not at another, regardless of the environment, nationality, socioeconomic status, sex of the child. These play activities are so universally popular and predictable that it is customary to divide the childhood years into specific play stages, each with its own names ei, exploratory stage, toy stage, play stage, daydream stage. Different kinds of play also follow predictable patterns. Block play, for example has been reported to pass through four distinct stages. In the first stage, children merely handle, explore, carry blocks and pile them in irregular masses. In the second, they construct rows and towers, in the third, they develop techniques for building more complicated designs and fourth, they dramatize and reproduce actual structure.
3. The number of play activities decreases with age: The number of different play

activities engaged in gradually decreases as children grow older. Comparative studies have reported that among 8 years old, as average of 40 deferent play activities are engaged in during 1 week while among person 12 years old and older the average is 18. The decrease is due to a number of reasons. Older children have less time available for play and they want to spent it in ways that give them greatest enjoyment. As their attention span increases, they can concentrate on a play activity longer instead of flitting (fly quickly) from one to another as they did when they were younger. Children abandon some activities because they have become boring or are regarded as babyish. Eg. K.G. children show a decreasing interest in blocks as other materials-paints, clay crayons and chalk.
4. Play become increasingly social with age: Because babies are egocentric,(selfish) it

is understandable that their play would be more solitary than social. Stone has explained that even when the baby plays with the mother, the baby is often a plaything, while the mothering one is the player. In time, both the child and the mothering one are mutually players and playthings. When young children first begin to play with age mater, there is little interaction or cooperation in their play. Instead, they engage in onlooker play- in which children watch what other children are doing. Or in parallel play in which children play in their own way, side by side with other children. When there is any interaction, there is little give and take. Instead, the interaction consists mostly of grabbing toys from another child and fighting when the child refuses to give up a toy.

5. The number of playmates decreases with age: Young children will play with

anyone who is available and willing to play with them. When they find children who are playing in a more interesting way, they shift from the children they are playing with to new ones. In a neighborhood or preschool group, children regard all group members as potential playmates. After children become members of a gang, all this changes. They want to play with a small, select group-my gang-whose members have common interests and whose play gives them particular satisfaction.
6. Play becomes increasingly sex appropriate: Babies and very young children make

little distinction between boys toys and girls toys and children of both sexes play in much the same way. By the time they enter school, however, boys are clearly aware that boys do not play with certain toys unless they want to gain the reputation of being sissies.
7. Childhood play changes from informal to formal: The play of young children is

spontaneous and informal. They play when and with what toys, they wish, regardless of time and place. They do not need special play equipment or special play clothes. Gradually, play becomes more and more formal. During the gang age, for example, children feel that special clothing, special equipment and a special place for play are essential. Appointments are made to meet and play at a definite time and place.
8. Play is less physically active as children grow older: During the first three grades in

school, children care little about sedentary (inactive) play until late in the day, when they are tired. Then they like to watch television or be read to. From grade four on, however, there is a gradual increase in the amount of time spent in reading, going to the movies, watching television, listening to the radio, listening to music and watching sports events.
9. Play is predictive (projecting/analytical)of childrens adjustment: The kind of

play children engage in, the variety of their play activities and the amount of time they spend in play are all indications of their personal and social adjustment. Children, for example, who engage mainly in solitary play at ages when their peers are playing with other children, are usually poorly adjusted, as shown by their lack of acceptance by members of the peer group.
10. There are marked variations in childrens play: Although all children pass through

similar and predictable stages of play, not all children play the same way at the same age.

Factors influencing childrens play:

a. Health: The healthier children are the more surplus energy they have for active b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

play, such as games and sports. Children who lack energy prefer amusements. Motor development: As childrens play at every age involves motor co ordinations what children will do with their playtime will depends on their motor development. Good motor control enables children to engage in active play. Intelligence: At every age bright children are more active than the less bright and their play shows greater ingenuity. As they grow older they show more interest in intellectual games in dramatics and construction and in reading. Bright children show a greater balance of play interests including both distinctly physical and distinctly intellectual pursuits. Sex: Boys play more strenuously (actively) than girls and prefer games and sports to all other kinds of play. In early childhood boys show a greater range of play interest than girls but the reverse is true in later childhood. Environment: Children from poor environment play less than others, owing to poorer health and less time, equipment and space. Children from rural environment play less than those from urban areas owing to few playmates, less equipments and less free time. Socioeconomic status: Children of higher socio economic groups prefer activities that cost money. Such as going to skating, rinks and athletic contest; those from the lower groups engage in activities costing little money such as ball games, and swimming. Social class influences the books children read, the movies they see, the kind of recreational groups they belong to and the supervision they have. Amount of leisure time: Amount of play time depends primarily on the familys economic status, if house hold duties or jobs take up most of their out -of -school time. Children are too tired to engage in activities requiring a large expenditure of energy. Play equipment: The play equipment, children have influences their play. A predominance of dolls and stuffed animals, eg., encourages make believe play, a predominance of blocks , paints and clay encourages constructive play.

Contribution of play to childrens personality development:

a. Physical development: Active play is essential of children are to develop their

b.

c. d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

i.

j.

k.

muscles and exercise all parts of their bodies. It also acts as an outlet for surplus energy which, if pent-up makes children tense, nervous and irritable. Encouragement of communication: To play successfully with others, children must learn to communicate with them in terms they can understand and they in turn must learn to understand what others are trying to communicate to them. Outlet for pen-up emotional energy: Play provides children will an outlet for the release of tensions due to the restrictions the environment places on their behavior Outlet for needs and desires: Needs and desires that can not be satisfactorily met in other ways can often be met in play. A child who is unable to achieve a leadership role in real life may gain satisfaction for this desire by being a leader of toy soldiers. Source of Learning: Play offers opportunities to learn many things-through books, television or exploring the environment- that children would not have an opportunity to learn at home or in school. Stimulant to creativity: Through experimentation in play, children discover that creating something new and different can be satisfying. They then transfer that creative interest to situations outside the play world. Development of self insight: In play, children learn what their abilities are and not they compare with those of their playmates. This enables them to develop more definite and realistic concepts of themselves. Learning to be social: By playing with other children, children learn how to establish social relationship and how to meet and solve the problems these relationships give rise to. Moral standards: Although children learn in the home and school what the group considers right and wrong, the enforcement of moral standards is no where as rigid as in the play group. Learning to play appropriate sex roles: Children learn, at home and in school, what the approved sex roles are. They soon discover that they must also accept them if they want to become members of the play group. Development of desirable personality traits: From contacts with members of the peer group in play, children learn to be cooperative generous, truthful, good sports, and peasant people to be with.

CONCLUSION (Write your own)