Chapter 11: Peers, Play, and Popularity

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Chapter 11 Peers, Play, and Popularity

• Play

By Kati Tumaneng (for Drs. Cook and Cook)
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Play

• A pleasurable activity that is actively engaged
  in on a voluntary basis, is intrinsically
  motivated, and contains some nonliteral element
  (Hughes, 1999).
• Through play, children develop muscle
  coordination, social interaction skills, logical
  reasoning and problem-solving skills, and the
  ability to think about the world as it really is
  and as it could be.

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The Social Levels of Play Partens (1932)
Classic Study

• Observations of 42 children ages 1-5 years as
  they engaged in free play at their preschool.
• Six levels of play
• Unoccupied behavior
• Onlooking
• Solitary play
• Parallel play
• Associative play
• Cooperative play
• Connection between ages and types of play lower
  levels among younger children.

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Types of Play from Infancy through Adolescence

• Sensorimotor Play in Infancy Play that evolves
  mostly around the practice of sensory activity
  and the development of new motor actions.
• At first, infants discover their own bodies.
• 3 months Interact with objects in the world.
• 6 months Incorporate every object into action
  pattern they prefer at the moment.
• 9 months Pay more attention to specific
  features of objects and begin treating objects
  differently (Hughes, 1999 Ruff, 1984).

The Nature of Childrens Play http//www.kidsourc
e.com/kidsource/content2/nature.of.childs.play.htm
l
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Types of Play from Infancy through Adolescence

• Symbolic play Play where children use
  make-believe and pretend to embellish objects and
  actions.
• Begins to emerge between 12 and 14 months.
• By 2-3 years, can pretend an object is something
  else.
• Sociodramatic play Play that involves acting
  out different social roles or characters.
• Becomes common by age 3.
• Functions (Hughes, 1999)
• Imitation of adults
• Reenactment of family relationships
• Expression of needs
• Outlet for forbidden impulses
• Reversal roles

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Types of Play from Infancy through Adolescence

• By age 6, most children have entered the stage of
  concrete operational thought.
• Become more logical and realistic, and fantasy
  and pretend tend to give way to seeing the world
  more as it really is.
• Push the limits of skills and demonstrate their
  mastery by performing stunts that become
  increasingly complex and dangerous.
• More active in organized sports.

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Types of Play from Infancy through Adolescence

• Leisure Time in Adolescence
• Shift from concrete and realistic thought of the
  grade school child to the more hypothetical and
  idealistic thought characteristics of the formal
  operational stage.
• In some sense this represents a return to fantasy
  of earlier years, but this time adolescents use
  their imaginations to speculate about how the
  world could or should be (Hughes, 1999).
• More active pursuits.

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Common Activities in Adolescence
(Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger, Wright,
2001)
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Trends in Play and Appropriate Toys and Materials
for Different Age Groups
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Cultural Differences in Play

• The same developmental progression probably
  occurs in all cultures but culture can influence
  where they play, whom they play with, and the
  main themes in their play.
• Opportunity and central themes and styles of
  social interactions that occur during play vary
  across diverse cultures.
• Space available also varies.
• Through play, children learn the skills that are
  important for their culture.
• Play effects social themes and interaction.
• E.g., children of US found to be more aggressive
  (Farver Welles-Nystrom, 1997).

Culture and Development in Children's
Play http//ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/ehyun/10041/cult
ure_and_development_in.htm
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• Picture on Slide 6 from Cook, J. L., Cook, G.
  (2005). Child development Principles and
  perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 445). Boston Allyn
  and Bacon.
• Graph on Slide 9 from Cook, J. L., Cook, G.
  (2005). Child development Principles and
  perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 446). Boston Allyn
  and Bacon.
• Table on Slide 10 from Cook, J. L., Cook, G.
  (2005). Child development Principles and
  perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 447). Boston Allyn
  and Bacon.
• All other images retrieved from Microsoft
  PowerPoint Clip Art.