The show is asking my preschooler to be involved and play.Playing Opens the Door to a Preschooler’s World
Fresh out of college in 1990, I got my start in Nickelodeon’s research department as an analyst. I remember that first day, riding up the steep elevators, singing the song “Let the River Run” from the movie Working Girl in my head. I truly had stars in my eyes, a skip in my step, and my sights set on conquering the world. One of my favorite parts of the job was going to focus group sessions and sitting behind a one-way glass mirror with a group of network executives and show creators to watch a moderator talk with preschoolers about new show ideas Nickelodeon was considering. During one such session, I noticed that the group of five-year-olds was being uncharacteristically lackluster and noncommunicative, and the moderator was struggling to get them talking, let alone get any insights out of them.
I watched the moderator ask each preschooler to rate the show they’d just screened on a scale of 1 to 10, a challenging task for any preschooler who’s just mastered the art of counting. How were they supposed to rate their preference using numbers, where 10 was the best and 1 was the worst? As she went around the circle, calling each preschooler by name, not one gave her a response. Finally, one little boy held out his hand and on his fingers showed five as he said, “Five.” Then, one by one, the others followed suit, holding out their fingers and saying “Five.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the show creator slowly put his head down and begin quietly banging it on the table, clearly upset. His show wasn’t doing well in the market testing and was under scrutiny. He turned to me, a green research coordinator who was known for her preschool expertise, and asked pleadingly, “A five? How could they give it a five? Why? Why did they give it a five?” Which is exactly the question the moderator was asking the kids. But none of them would give her an answer, and now it appeared they were having a standoff, with some even making a beeline for the door. Exasperated, as you can imagine you would be with a room full of preschoolers who are done with you, the moderator stepped out for a moment and poked her head into our room, asking us if we had any other questions.
I had a question. I wanted to know if I could introduce myself to the kids as a “special guest” and ask them a few questions about the show. Happy for the reprieve, the moderator agreed, and I headed to the other side of the one-way glass.
After introducing myself, I began to play with the kids using the various toys we’d set up around the room. And for ten minutes, that’s all we did—play. We played with blocks, we laughed, and we talked. One preschooler brought me a cup of pretend tea, which I drank. Another, dressed head-to-toe in a Princess Jasmine outfit, started working through my hair with a pretend brush. After we had bonded through play, I decided to ask them about the Nickelodeon show they’d just watched and find out their reasons for giving it a score of five. Their eyes wide, they all turned to me when I posed the questions, but still said nothing. I noticed my little Princess Jasmine friend was now running around the room with her arms outstretched on her pretend flying carpet, so I called to her by her pretend name. “Princess Jasmine, why did you give the show a five?”
Then something magical happened. Princess Jasmine slowly turned around and sized me up. She gave me a huge grin and flew the magic carpet over to me, animated and ready to talk. She sat down, scooched really close to me, and announced vehemently, “Because I’m five!” She held up her five fingers to prove it. The rest of my new preschool friends joined in—they had all given the show a five because they were five years old. Preschool reasoning at its finest. But I wanted to know more. So, we played more. In fact, we played out the entire show that Nickelodeon was there to test. And through play, I discovered that not only did the children understand the whole storyline—they liked the characters enough to act out the twenty-two-minute show for me, sing the songs, and even stop to retell their favorite jokes.
When I said good-bye to the preschoolers and went back to the room on the other side of the one-way glass, I was immediately enveloped in a warm hug by the creator of the show. Play had saved the day and the creator’s dream of making his show.
That experience in the focus group reinforced the power of play, and it’s why I work hard to capture that sense of play in all my shows. As Fred Rogers famously said, “Play is childhood.”
Whether they are figuring out how their family dynamic works, acting out their preschool fantasies, sounding out a new word, or handling a sharing showdown on a playdate, a preschooler’s play is intrinsically tied to every aspect of their learning process. In fact, a preschooler’s entire life revolves around play—that’s why tapping into this power of play is so critical. By knowing how to use play in a way that preschoolers will respond to, parents, caregivers, and teachers will be in the best possible position to support their kids’ cognitive and social-emotional development.
Not surprisingly, Merriam-Webster dictionary defines play as: “. . . to take part in a game” with game defined as “an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.” Perhaps because of definitions like this and the way the word play is used in our everyday vernacular, the concept of play has a long history of not being taken seriously. For me personally, I don’t know how many times I was told as a kid, “Stop playing and learn something!”
Of course, we now know that free play—child led, without any adult guidance—fosters much more learning than anyone once believed. When our kids freely play for even half an hour per day, they will become smarter, more independent, and more adept at solving problems. In fact, there is research-based evidence that dramatic play promotes desire, motivation, and mastery.1 That’s because when kids have control over their own learning, they tend to seek out knowledge through exploration, hypothesis testing, and discovery. And when dramatic play is done in a safe, anxiety- and risk-free environment, children feel free and willing to test the limits of their knowledge and abilities.2 As a result, they learn to have confidence in their ability to solve a problem.
When Piaget defined play as “the work of the child,” he proved that play was not just for amusement, but had real merit in the developing brain of healthy preschoolers. When given the time and space to play creatively and imaginatively, preschoolers are actually practicing key skills. They are engaging in self-directed learning in a way that allows them to make up their own rules about the world and change them whenever they want to.
Learning through play fosters:
• cognitive learning: letters, numbers, patterns, shapes, etc.;
• social-emotional learning: working through their feelings;
• conflict-resolution strategies;
• role playing and perspective taking;
• playing out decisions without the risk of failure;
• bonding with loved ones.
There are many different types of play, each with a different but positive effect on our preschooler’s brain development. Here’s a breakdown:
Type of Play |
What It Is |
What It Looks Like |
Dramatic Play |
Acting out scenarios based on what preschoolers see in real life and in the media, their hopes and dreams, and/or what they’re worried about. |
Playing house, restaurant, school, going to the store, superheroes or fairies, and more. |
Physical Play |
This is the play we see in backyards and playgrounds everywhere; preschoolers getting valuable exercise and practicing key gross motor skills. |
Running, jumping, climbing, playing physical games like tag and hide and seek. |
Expressive Play |
Often referred to as “art” play, kids tell stories and share thoughts, which allows preschoolers opportunities to express their feelings. |
Playing with finger paints, watercolors, clay, water, sand, musical instruments, and more. |
Manipulative Play |
This play is about figuring out how things work and the beginning of scientific discovery, beginning in infancy when the child begins to understand what they do has an effect on their environment. |
Throwing a toy on the floor just to have Mom pick it up and give it back to them . . . over and over again, playing with puzzles, using arts and crafts items. |
Intellectual Play |
Interactive gaming that broadens and deepens a preschooler’s cognitive development. |
Drawing and telling a story that leads to writing and acting out their stories, letter identification, tracing in shaving cream, playing with letter blocks, playing letter bingo, and writing words. |
Dramatic play provides preschoolers the most educational benefit and parents the most valuable insight, so I’ll be focusing on this type of play in this chapter. Preschoolers’ play is immersive, all consuming, and purposeful. Like our own little Meryl Streeps, preschoolers completely lose themselves in their characters as they try on different types of play scenarios. Sometimes they insist on dressing like their favorite character (capes, hats, flight suits, tutus, and tiaras), other times they might eat like their character (I knew one preschooler who would only eat oats during her “horse stage”) or only respond when they are addressed as their character, as was the case with my friend, Princess Jasmine. So, I say, why beat it when you can join in? Play can be the portal to enter a preschooler’s world and get them expressing their points of view. And to do this, we need to get down on the floor, on their level, and play.
Immersing preschoolers in the world of play is the reason why the live-action characters of Steve and Joe are shown living inside a book on Blue’s Clues as real people in an animated world. It’s why Blue is a blue puppy—completely fantastical. It’s why Steve and Joe literally jump to skidoo—magically travel—into felt boards, pictures, and chalk worlds. In this way, we are literally modeling how to enter the fantastical world of preschool play when the TV is off and cheerful objects are all around and available for play. Because preschoolers are so much more communicative and open when playing, there’s no limit to what we can learn about them when we embrace this notion.
I remember one weekend with my daughters. Hope was seven and Ella was four, when they were busy playing in our family room. Dressed head to toe in pretend ball gowns, plastic shoes, and lots and lots of “jeweled” necklaces, they were singing at the top of their lungs.
“A moment like THISSSSS . . . !” Hope belted Kelly Clarkson, as Ella danced around her. Then suddenly their play pivoted. Here’s how the scene unfolded:
Hope: Let’s play house! I’m the mommy.
Ella: Great! I will be the daddy. I want to be the daddy.
Hope: You can’t be the daddy!
Ella looked at Hope, puzzled.
Ella: Why?
Hope: Because you are a girl.
Ella: So?!
Hope: So girls are mommies and boys are daddies.
Ella, my budding philosopher, wasn’t having it.
Ella: Playing pretend is for being people you love. Not for being people who you are.
Hope: Oh, yeah. Like a princess? Or a fairy?
Ella: Or a daddy. I want to be daddy. I love Daddy.
Hope: Yes, sure, of course. Okay, you can be a daddy, or a frog, or a mermaid!
The negotiation ended as they learned, together, that playing pretend means they can be whoever they want and, in Ella’s mind, whoever you “love.” As they happily continued their play, Ella kicked off the high-heeled shoes, literally stepped into my husband Greg’s big slippers, and said, “Ready!” Hope surveyed Ella’s outfit, finding another problem.
Hope: Daddy doesn’t wear a dress or necklaces.
Ella looked down and considered her dress-up outfit, trying to devise a plan.
Ella: This one does.
This scene highlights an interesting developmental difference between Hope and Ella, and shows how play bridged the gap so they could both continue their own learning journey from their unique vantage points. At seven, Hope’s mind was beginning to form rules and understand gender norms and roles. Ella, still her four-year-old fantastical self, begged to differ. But Hope was willing to go with it. Their play was engaging her flexible thinking capabilities and continuing to expand her mindset.
Hope shrugged and continued to play, sitting at the coffee table pretending to type feverishly on a make-believe computer. Just as I do when I’m working, Hope stopped typing for a second, looked up, cocked her head to one side, and then began furiously typing again.
Hope: Okay. So, I’m the mommy. I’m writing. Then I have a meeting. It’s about a new show. In New York City.
Ella barreled in, running around and making beeping sounds.
Ella: I’m the daaaaaddy! Beep! Beep!
Hope: Daddy, what are you doing?
Ella: Picking up my girls. From school. Beep! Ugh. Traffic.
Then suddenly, Hope stopped and got up, no longer in imaginary play mode.
Hope: Wait, let’s play house the regular way.
Ella looked at Hope, unsure of what she meant, as this was her reality.
Hope: You know, the regular way. Where the mommy stays home and the daddy goes to work.
Hope’s understanding of the norms and rules were again pushing against the preschooler view of play. And again, Ella was having none of it. Learning and playing with her highly verbal big sister definitely had a positive impact on her negotiation skills.
Ella: This is the regular way! Daddy works. See? I’m on my phone. On my computer.
Hope: Yeah. But not in New York City!
Ella: Yeah. So now I go to New York City?
Hope: Yup. You go on the train now. And I’m the mommy. I pick you up from school.
Ella came bouncing by, this time pretending to be on the train:
Ella: Oooooon the trainnnnnnnn . . . Chooo chooo . . .
Hope: Okay, now you come home ’cause the Daddy needs to play with us.
Ella: I’m home!
Hope: I’m Hope now. Let’s dance! A moment like thiiiisssss!
Hope and Ella took each other’s hands and danced around. I walked into the room with some blueberries, and decided to jump into their play by using guided learning and contributing my own feelings about who works, who stays home, and what families look like.
Me: Mommy’s home with some snacks!
Hope: Oh good! The daddy’s home and the mommy’s home. Sometimes she works in NYC, but then we play.
Me: I love to play.
Ella: Yay!
Me: Let’s sing! “A moment like thiisssss!”
We dance . . .
Hope: When the mommy’s home and the daddy’s home, we all play, and it’s like we’re on vacation all the time!
Ella: Hurray!
So, what did I learn through that afternoon of play? I learned that my girls were debating the real versus the fantasy of being “anything you want,” including being a daddy if you’re a girl. They were also trying to understand the way their family dynamic worked as compared to what they’ve seen modeled for them in their friends’ families. Hope and Ella’s daddy was home, picking them up, taking them to everything, and working from home, while their mommy worked in the city. And their real dream? Playing like they were on vacation all the time, with everyone free and available to play. (Isn’t that everyone’s dream?)
In the early years of life, children spend most of their waking time exploring their world, their caregivers, and the objects around them. It is a time of rapid brain growth, and brain development theories suggest that the structure of these early experiences actually shapes a child’s functional neuronal circuits. Both play and exploration help build a solid foundation of skills needed for such brain development. In fact, as a linchpin for intellectual development, play helps preschoolers learn how to understand the perspectives of others, invent strategies for play by themselves as well as with others, and solve problems.
We can see the results of play right away. When preschoolers play, they are cooperative and communicative. They take initiative and creative risks, and engage in hands-on learning that promotes intellectual change. And in the long term, play makes preschoolers smarter by supporting their growth, self-direction, and sense of self-worth.
In addition to promoting brain growth and intellectual development, I consider play to be a preschooler’s first language. Back in 1990, when I was sitting in that focus group with a room full of five-year-olds, the children were much more willing to express their feelings, thoughts, and opinions when I allowed them to play. Through their play, they talked and showed me what they understood about the show, what they liked, and how much of the story they retained. In that situation, play became the preschool equivalent of Google Translate, bridging the gap between our two distinct perspectives and languages.
When an adult joins a preschooler’s play, they are essentially saying, “I understand you.” We’re allowing preschoolers to be completely comfortable in being who they are. And what could be more powerful than that?
Ask any child development expert about whether we want to foster intrinsic or extrinsic motivation in our children, and they will overwhelmingly tell you YES: intrinsic motivation. It’s the motivation that is driven by internal rewards such as satisfaction, pride, or the boost of having successfully tackled and met a challenge. As Iain Lancaster wrote on the website TeachThought, of the importance of intrinsic motivation, “Only students who are intrinsically motivated to be engaged in school will end up truly challenged, enriched, energized, and ultimately fulfilled by their experience. Yes, it’s an ideal, but it’s worth keeping in mind.”3
Enter play as an ideal vehicle for encouraging preschoolers to be actively engaged and intrinsically motivated. Through play we observe their zest, their spark, and their passion, as well as their focused attention. In play, preschoolers are employing all their senses and practicing all levels of education—from using language to communicate with others and developing critical and flexible thinking to solving problems and working on fine motor skills through activities like drawing and gross motor skills in riding trikes and running. But the most important aspect of play—one that cannot be underestimated—is that a child’s sense of autonomy, initiative, and industry is rooted in intrinsic motivation and active engagement.
Put yourself in the mind of a preschooler for a moment. What would it do to you if, as a four-year-old, you were paid money every time you threw a ball into the basket? Or imagine you received a new toy every time you sat on the potty? Or a new doll every time you got on stage to perform in your school play? While reward systems like this might work in the short term and may help motivate a child, in the long term, they do the exact opposite. It steals the level of pride a child feels when they figure something out. It replaces the happiness they feel over what they accomplished and puts a monetary value on it. This has a negative impact on their sense of self.
It has been well documented, including in Dan Pink’s fantastic book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, that finding joy in the work you do versus working for money is what leads to a happy, healthy, and fulfilled adult life.4 So how do we teach fulfillment? How do we teach happiness or spark or passion? We teach it through activities that support intrinsic motivation. Finding something that sparks your preschooler so much so that they are intrinsically motivated to do it.
Play itself comes in three different forms: spontaneous play, guided play, and adult-directed play. Each of these forms has its own merit:
This is the type of play preschoolers do naturally, mostly in the form of pretend play. For example, your preschooler might pick a saltshaker up off the table, turn it into a character, and make it talk (sound familiar?). She might then have a little wedding ceremony with Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper and then add to the family a sweet little baby named Paprika. Another example of spontaneous play would be when a preschooler picks up a new prop or object and begins to play or picks up a paintbrush to paint, a crayon to draw, and so on. In spontaneous play, preschoolers are on their own to explore, create, and imagine.
To up the ante, we can introduce guided play, which is defined as a nudge from someone with more knowledge providing information to elevate the learning. For instance, in guided play a parent or teacher might show a preschooler she can use tools beyond a paintbrush to paint, like a sponge or a roller or even a potato. On Creative Galaxy, Chef Zesty shows Arty how to use vegetables to make dye for coloring eggs!
When doing a puzzle, guided play might look like showing a preschooler the strategy of building the edges of the puzzle first. When solving a conflict in play, the guide will give preschoolers insights to solve their own problems. These small guided pieces of information or strategies help get preschoolers to practice and discover what they can do on their own. On Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, our musical strategies help to empower preschoolers to solve their own conflicts in play. For example, when preschoolers are having a problem playing together, we sing “Find a Way to Play Together.”
We can get more educational benefit out of dramatic play when we guide or direct the play. Used in classrooms, an adult-directed play technique has a parent, teacher, caregiver, or even an older sibling model something new. Adding in a new prop or asking questions to direct the play can take the learning to a deeper level. In adult-directed play, an adult initiates play by providing a new prop, craft, or theme for preschoolers to play and explore. For instance, adult-directed play could be reading The Three Little Pigs to our preschooler, discussing it, assigning pretend play “roles” (e.g., “You be the pig and I’ll be the wolf!”), and then letting your preschooler act it out. In another example of adult-directed play, we set out certain items, like clay or paint or even some new props like a magnifying glass and take a nature walk. Preschoolers didn’t choose the play, but when offered the idea, they typically latch on and soar.
Just like the best preschool classroom, play is at the center of the curriculum of any good show or app. We want preschool media to enhance and extend the learning for preschoolers, even when they’re not watching or playing. We want to choose for them media that sparks them, ignites their thinking, and invites them to play in a creative way after the show is over. When choosing shows and apps, look for ones that feature play at the heart and preschoolers as the leaders of the play.
In my shows, we employ both adult-guided play, showing how to play a game or break down a new skill, as well as adult-directed play, where we start with a theme and walk preschoolers through that theme by scaffolding the information and key skills. We also demonstrate spontaneous play, such as when we show Daniel Tiger and his friends playing at home or in the play corner at school. Other preschool shows frequently tap into these different types as well, such as Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins, which frequently shows six-year-old Dottie engaging in spontaneous play with her dolls and toys before shifting into adult-guided play as she is faced with a problem (a broken toy or doll) in need of fixing.
PLAY IN APPS
When it comes to apps and virtual games, we’re looking for the same type of experiences to extend the learning through play. Interacting with a favorite character through an app offers real-time interactivity. For younger preschoolers, those two to three years old, opt for the free play apps that allow your preschoolers to play out a story and be the leader in that play. These free-play, or “sandbox”-type, apps are those where preschoolers are encouraged to free play and use trial and error in a way similar to dramatic and sensory play.
Examples of such apps include Busy Shapes, an exploring-to-learn app for the youngest preschoolers; Toca Band, also exploratory yet based in music and instruments; and Explore Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, which is a “virtual dollhouse” that lets preschoolers explore Daniel’s world and lead the play. These apps and others like them let preschoolers be in charge as to how and what to play and do. For older preschoolers (four to five years old), look for apps that explore and ignite their curiosity and spark them to play as their learning goes deeper on their terms, such as PBS KIDS Games, Daniel Tiger apps, The Monster at the End of This Book app, and Toca apps.
So, how do we bring more play into our everyday lives with our preschoolers? Don’t worry—it’s not about playing with our kids around the clock. But it is about regularly dedicating time for our preschoolers to learn from spontaneous play, coupled with keeping an eye out for opportunities to guide and sometimes even direct their play. We can do this by setting aside some “free time” for play, choosing media and apps that reinforce and model this type of play, and using the play our kids are already engaged in as a tool for communication, comprehension, and mastery.
We know that play helps preschoolers fully comprehend a concept by interacting within it so, as parents and caregivers, we can be on the lookout for ways in which they may be engaging in play to make sense of big feelings they might be trying to sort out. For instance, maybe they are desperate to get a puppy, and so their play evolves into constantly “being” the puppy. By being an involved co-player, we support them in being immersed in the play. We may even let them eat out of a bowl like a puppy instead of a plate. When we can participate in their dramatic play on this level and show respect for their play language and script, they will open up and express their feelings, worries, and points of view. Interestingly, this same approach works even as they move into the tween and teen years, when we enter into their teen-isms (watching Gilmore Girls together or going indoor rock climbing), they can put their guard down and give us deeper insight into what’s happening in their world.
By being involved co-players and verbally or physically checking in with our preschoolers, by making eye contact or nodding, we can also extend the learning of their play and/or offer clues to guide them. For instance, if a beloved pet fish has just died, a preschooler might be stuck in fish play for a while as he figures out his emotions. Noticing this, we can use some play therapy techniques, such as putting out paper and crayons and suggesting they draw a picture of their beloved fish, setting out a preschool book about losing a pet like The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, or even role-playing the scenario to better understand their interpretation of events.
Similarly, if we see our child engaged in a lot of sad play, or even angry play, we might have an easier time discovering the underlying reason if we make the effort to join in. Play is a safe way to express feelings. It’s much better for them to be acting out negative emotions in dramatic play than at another child. Through role-playing or actively listening, we can understand what’s at the root of the play and then offer solutions. The other upshot of this type of interactive, involved co-playing is that it provides yet another opportunity to give preschoolers clues and coping strategies that they will model and use, independently from us.
Vivian Paley, a renowned expert on preschoolers and play, spent her career in preschool classrooms and has written thirteen books, most notably, Mollie Is Three. In it, Paley equates adult engagement in a preschooler’s play to a Greek chorus, writing, “We observe from outside the drama and comment in the manner of a Greek chorus, sometimes repeating something a child or character has said. We make connections that help reveal the player’s intentions.”5 The connections are questions about their play, similar to the way we might ask questions while reading a storybook aloud such as, “Why is the superhero running around so fast?” “Where is he going?” “I wonder what is going to happen next in the story?” “Can we make room for a friend in the spaceship to the moon?”
This type of play is regularly modeled on Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood as we offer repeated strategies to help Daniel deal with play-corner squabbles. We call them strategies “with handles” because they are easy to grasp and hold on to for both parents and preschoolers. One of our most popular episodes has been our “sharing” episode, in which Daniel goes to the park to play “cars” with his friends. In the story, everyone was to bring their own toy car so they could play together by racing them, but Daniel’s preschool friend Prince Wednesday (Backstory: he’s the later-in-life son of King Friday and Queen Sarah Saturday!) forgets to bring a car and is visibly upset. Modeling empathy, Daniel is upset too and wants to help. After the two talk about the situation, Prince Wednesday asks to take a turn with Daniel’s car. At first, Daniel isn’t so sure. After all, this is his new toy and he wants to play with it.
Then we bring guided interaction into play, and have Dad help him by singing the strategy song with him about sharing: “You can take a turn and then I get it back.” In the end, in addition to better understanding the concept of sharing, Daniel learns that if he does share, he will always get his toy back, something an adult clearly understands but a preschooler may not be too sure about. This adult-directed strategy helps Daniel resolve the situation, and he ultimately gives Prince Wednesday a turn with his car, reminding himself that he will get it back. This modeling of conflict resolution through adult-directed play is repeated, with different strategies for different feelings and situations, throughout every episode of the series. We always show Daniel first learning the strategy from an adult, then singing it so he fully understands it, and then ultimately, in play using the strategy by himself to solve his own problem.
Similarly, on Wishenpoof, Mom, Dad, and even Bianca’s “sage” of a bear best friend Bob will give Bianca “words of wisdom,” which is food for thought to help her solve her own problems. For instance, in different episodes, Bianca has learned “You can think of how your friend is feeling” or “The best way to know what your friend needs is to ask him.” Rather than tell Bianca exactly what she needs to know—Your friend is sad! or Your friend needs to rest, he’s not feeling well—we use adult-directed play so Bianca can model thinking on her own to solve the problem while armed with her “words of wisdom.”
When a parent or older sibling takes the time to play a game with a preschooler—whether it be playing a board game, reading a story, sharing a bike ride, or doing a wacky freeze dance game—we are bonding through play in a way that teaches our kids self-importance and boosts their self-worth. At this age, virtually any shared experience becomes a highlight in our preschooler’s experience, and they will want it to be repeated. For instance, snuggling and watching a favorite show together fosters positive, pleasant, sweet sharing moments and leads to inside jokes, talking (about what’s going to happen next or how a character is feeling, for example), and bonding one-on-one time.
I know many people are turned off by the fact that these days most of us have to make a “date” to “play.” Back in my day, as a kid, we used to just run next door to “play,” unannounced and with zero fanfare. But I actually see today’s playdates as a positive thing. While there is something to be said for the innocence and freedom we had as kids to just play and do our thing, truth be told, the date to play gives kids more structure and additional parental involvement, which ultimately elevates the play. Now that you make a “date” to play, the rules and stakes are higher for what a playdate entails. And I happen to think that’s a good thing.
Angela’s Clues
With the onset of apps, educational toys, educational classes, and media, the time our preschoolers are spending doing their own thing has become increasingly sparse. The more we understand about how important dramatic play and free play is, the more we can make some time for it and see inside our preschooler’s mind as to what they are learning and what sparks them.
When we incorporate play into the lives of our preschoolers, we are giving them a leg up, not to mention ultimate control over learning through trial and error, learning to find their spark, and learning to expand their knowledge of the way the world works. When we are playful in our approach to parenting, we are also creating a lasting bond with our kids so they can grow up independent, strong, and ready to take on the world with their own opinions and values modeled by us.
In media, I use a model for play by engaging and interacting with the preschooler at home and sparking dramatic play for after the show is over. As a media creator and a mom, I also understand the importance of finding the time to promote dramatic, creative, and imaginative play, and some of that time is consistently being eaten away by media. Using media to inspire our preschoolers to turn it off and go “do” is one of its best uses. And as parents, we need to model putting our phones away or turning off media to focus on our family time, too. To a preschooler, even our “just checking email every now and then” while at the park doesn’t feel good. When they look over at us after launching themselves super high on a swing only to see us deep in our phones, it feels like a betrayal . . . like catching our significant other canoodling with someone else while out on a date with us. Ouch. I remember once when we were on vacation and I went to check my email. Ella, four at the time, looked me square in the eyes and said, “This is not an email-cation, this is not a phone-cation—this is a VA-cation!” Out of the mouths of babes . . .
• Be Involved by immersing yourself in your preschooler’s world of play.
• Ask Questions to discover why they love to play the way they do.
• See the Spark to find a way to extend their learning through play.
YOUR MEDIA “YES” LIST
How does your child’s media stack up with regard to its relationship with play? Go through the following checklist (and do the same with the checklists at the end of each of the remaining chapters) to refine your personal media “Yes” list and deepen your understanding for how to apply the strengths and tenets of best shows for your child into your parenting notebook.
The show is asking my preschooler to be involved and play.
The play is enriching, new, different, and/or challenging.
My child is motivated to try new things, solve problems, and/or explore something new after engaging with the show.
The play themes in their media are extending into real life in a positive way.
Clue Takeaways
• Play is the work of the child.
• Play helps preschoolers develop intellect and intrinsic motivation, understand the perspective of others, and problem solve.
• Preschoolers benefit from spontaneous play, guided play, and adult-directed play.
• We can look for opportunities to participate, ask questions, and be part of play to extend our preschooler’s learning.
• Co-playing with our preschooler builds his or her self-worth.