Category Archives: Child Development

Benefits of Play for Learning

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Gwen Dewar has  nice collection of examples of research that supports the idea that children learn best by playing: http://www.parentingscience.com/benefits-of-play.html

Here’s my favorite section:

“1. Most play involves exploration, and exploration is, by definition, an act of investigation. It’s easy to see how this applies to a budding scientist who is playing with magnets, but it also applies to far less intellectual pursuits, like the rough-and-tumble play in puppies. The animals are testing social bonds and learning how to control their impulses, so that friendly wrestling doesn’t turn into anti-social aggression. Play is learning.

2. Play is self-motivated and fun. Thus, anything learned during play is knowledge gained without the perception of hard work. This is in contrast with activities that we perform as duties… Play is an obvious gateway to the state of flow.

3. … kids treat play as a tutorial for coping with real life challenges. All around the world, children engage in pretend play that simulates the sorts of activities they will need to master as adults (Lancy 2008), suggesting such play is a form of practice. And when kids are fed information during pretend play–from more knowledgeable peers or adults–they take it in….

Your Unique Child

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Each September, as I begin a new parent-toddler class, one of our first parent education discussions is: “Your Unique Child: the Influence of Temperament, Gender, and Learning Styles on How you Parent Each Child.”

I start there, because I know that the parents in the class are looking around the room and comparing their child to the other children, and often wondering/worrying about whether their child is “behind” or if they are doing a good job as a parent.

I want them to realize that every child is a unique individual, parented by unique individuals, in unique settings. Although we should be aware of developmental milestones – the age at which the average child gains a skill, the reality is that there is huge variation in individuals.

Here are just some ideas to help you understand, and support, your unique child.

  • Children are born with distinct personalities. It is absolutely worth consdering ideas like Temperament, Learning Style / Multiple Intelligences and Gender and Introvert / Extrovert to help us better understand them.
  • However, we don’t want to “label” our children (as “the shy one” or “the wild one” or “the musician”) because that can them limit our expectations for them, which limits their ability to grow and develop into all that they are.
  • There are not good or bad temperaments. But, there are goodness of fit, and badness of fit. A high activity child has “goodness of fit” on the playground, but not in the library. A very regular, routine-oriented child might “fit” well with a similar parent, but not so well with the free-spirited parent.
  • It’s good to know your children’s strengths, so you can give them plenty of experiences that let them use those strengths to build their confidence.
  • It’s also good to know what your child struggles with. On a good day, we may gently push their comfort zones to encourage growth in those areas. But, on a day when we’re tired and they’re tired, or we’re away from home, it may be easiest to adapt to their temperament accommodating how we need to in order to make it through the day. (So, our sensitive child may need a quiet day at home. Our active child may need a day running at the park. Our routines kid needs to bring routines from home wherever he goes.)

Lots more resources on temperament listed here.

Supporting Boys and Girls

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When learning about the differences between genders or temperaments or learning styles and their effect on your child, try not to think of anything as “here’s what’s wrong with my child” but instead focus on:

  • here are things my kid is good at – I should give them plenty of opportunities to do those things so they have a chance to feel competent and successful and
  • here are areas my child may need extra support in developing – what are some ways I can gently challenge and nudge them in that direction on good days without pressuring them (especially not pressuring them on days when everything is already feeling hard)

Here are thoughts for supporting boys and girls:

Helping boys succeed

  • Physical activity is essential: give him active chores, ensure he has plenty of time for big motor play. If he has a shorter attention span, it helps to break big jobs down into smaller tasks, and switch things around when working, alternating activities.
  • While girls learn best with words (spoken or written) as their primary source of information, boys learn better when they can manipulate or view the material.
  • Take advantage of boys’ natural curiosity and desire to fix things by giving problems to solve. Take advantage of his desire to compete by issuing challenges.
  • If you want to connect with a boy, do something physical together. Especially if you want to have a “serious talk” with him: Do it while walking side-by-side, not sitting and looking at him.

Helping girls succeed

  • Encourage physical activity of all kinds. Treat her as a brave, strong, athletic child.
  • Encourage her to practice skills that build spatial intelligence – build with blocks, make and use maps, and play video games that let her “move” through spaces and put pieces together.
  • Play with toys that move – cars, paper airplanes, balls – these help predict motion.

Stress response

  • When boys are stressed, they have an adrenaline-fueled reaction – either moving toward a danger (fight) or running away from danger (flight). These outbursts are hard to miss, and may be seen as disruptive behavior. A stressed boy might do best to get up and move, especially outdoors where he can be loud. But, he can also be taught to take slow deep breaths to calm his response.
  • When girls are stressed, they have an oxytocin-fueled response (the collect-and-protect response, aka “tend-and-befriend”) – they are more likely to turn to other people for support and to help defend from perceived threats. Their stress may be quieter and go un-noticed until they begin to cry. A stressed girl may do best when someone moves in close to her, speaking in a calm, quiet voice, and offering support with problem-solving. source

Learn more on gender https://gooddayswithkids.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gender.pdf and gender identity: https://gooddayswithkids.com/2018/05/02/gender-identity/ 

Gender Differences: Nature then Nurture

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genderNature: boys and girls do develop differently

There are lots of anecdotes about how different boys and girls* are. And, for any point that you are trying to prove about gender differences, you’ll be able to find at least one study that supports it. But, when experts do a meta-analysis of all the studies, these are the main differences that show up consistently:

  • Emotional Development: Boys may get upset and explode more easily, and have a harder time self-soothing. Girls may show fear earlier: they’re more likely to startle, and more likely to become cautious when their parents look worried about something.
  • Spatial Learning: boys may be better at the ability to turn objects around in their mind to see how they could fit together differently (puzzles), and better at keeping track of moving objects and predicting motion (where the ball will land).
  • Physical Skills: Boys may be more physically active (although girls reach large motor milestones at about the same age). Boys may have shorter attention spans.
  • Language: Girls are better at perceptual speed tasks: identifying matching objects and pattern identification. They may pay more attention to the human voice than boys do. Girls often talk earlier.

However, although those differences are observable patterns, the differences from all boys to all girls are small. When we look at individuals, there is just as much variation from one boy to another as there is from any one boy to any one girl.

It is true that girls’ brains develop faster. At birth, a full-term girl is about one week “more mature” than a full-term boy. Girls reach the halfway point of their brain development before 11 years, and their brain is fully mature between 21 and 22 year old. Boys’ halfway point is 15 years, with full brain maturity by 25 to 30 years old. Source. This delay can make boys seem “not as bright” or “not as good at academic skills” as girls, but that’s not the case in the long run.

Nurture: Boys and girls are treated differently

So, there are, in fact, slight biological differences. But we as parents reinforce and amplify the differences. We tend to encourage our children to do the things that we expect they would be good at (boys to throw balls, girls to talk) and we don’t challenge them in other areas, because “well, girls are just not as physical, and we all know boys talk later.” Our assumptions “crystallize into… self-fulfilling prophecies.” (Eliot)

  • Emotional Development: Some believe that “girls are more empathic / tuned into people from day one – they are much more likely to establish eye contact.” But others point out that because newborn boys are fussier and harder to soothe (due to those less mature brains), their parents are less likely to establish eye contact, so boys don’t get as much practice at that skill.
  • Emotional Expression: Boys are seen as more likely to be angry and aggressive, but that’s considered normal. Angry girls are told not to be angry. When girls show fear, they receive empathic support. But fearful boys are told not to be scared.  Source.
  • Spatial Learning: Girls are, in fact, slightly less interested in puzzles and building toys. But when we give our boys lots of Legos, and give our girls toy animals, having fewer opportunities to practice spatial skills can turn into a bigger gap in skills which influences learning advanced math later on.
  • Physical: Boys are expected to be more physical and more interested in balls and bikes, so when they show these interests, they are more actively encouraged. Boys are dressed in clothes they can move well in. Girls are dressed in “pretty” clothes, and assumed to be less physically capable. There was a study of 11 month olds. The mothers were asked how steep a slope their child could crawl down. Then the children were tested. Boys and girls did about the same. But the mothers of girls had significantly underestimated what their girls were capable of. Source
  • Language: Parents and teachers see a boy lagging in reading and verbal skills and shrug it off with, “But of course, he’s a boy.” It is true that girls talk younger. At 20 months a girl may know 200 words and a boy may know 30. But in a month he’ll catch up to where she was! She will always have gotten more practice than he has, though, so she will always seem further ahead. Girls may also read younger, which means parents assume they like to read. These girls are more likely to read for pleasure – which builds language skills, putting them further ahead. Meanwhile, the parents may focus on how slow their boy is at learning to read – when he over-hears this, he may develop a fixed mindset and assume that reading is not one of the things he’ll ever be good at.

Think about your expectations for the children in your life. What assumptions do you make about their capabilities based on their gender? Where do you “make excuses” for them based on gender… “well, I know that this is harder for boys to learn…”? When guessing which toys and activities they’ll be interested in, how colored are your assumptions by their gender?

Yes, I get that boys and girls can be different. My youngest boy was obsessed with trains as a toddler – my daughter never even played with the trains I got for her. She carried their stuffed animals everywhere and had a complex understanding of the social relationships of those animals and my youngest only occasionally plays with his stuffed animals. But I gave all of my kids an opportunity to interact with a variety of toys. And I tried not to make assumptions about which toys they would like.

Some parents believe that gender differences are set in stone, others see them as more malleable. Media has a big influence on parents’ perceptions of gender stereotypes. Politically conservative sources are more likely to explain gender differences as being based on biology rather than culture, and that means there readers were more comfortable to traditional gender stereotypes as “unavoidable.” Source

As with most aspects of parenting, I think the challenge is for us to:

  • see our children’s strengths (gender based or not) as strengths and give them plenty of free play opportunities to practice them and gain confidence and a sense of mastery
  • see the areas our children are less skilled in as areas for growth not as “unchangeable biological imperatives”. Provide gentle nudges in play-based learning, or more direct instruction to help them learn and grow, without pressuring them with demands for instant success

Sources:

Check out my other posts in this series: Boy and Girl Toys and Supporting Boys and Girls. Some sources I used in preparing these posts were Pink Brain, Blue Brain. By Lise Eliot. (read interview with Eliot at http://bigthink.com/videos/big-think-interview-with-lise-eliot or watch video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9hM8hnDta4); Cognitive Gender Differences by Abigail James. Boys’ Behavior: Why Boys Behave the Way They Do. By Troy Parrish. And Gender Neutral Parenting on Choosing Therapy

* Caveat: All discussions of gender are more complex than they seem. In terms of sex, humans can be biologically male, female or intersex. In terms of identity, presentation and gender roles, gender is more of a spectrum than a simple binary. Read more about gender here.

Link

I like this page from Nature Play which touches on many of the topics I wrote about last week, including Schema of Play (which they call Movement Urges), “How Many in the Mix” which relates to the Stages of Play, and Play-Ally about the role of the adult in play-based learning. They also have a nice section on Types of Play, which include Exploratory, Repetitive, Physical, Role-Play, Imaginary Play, Creative Play, and Therapeutic Play.

On another page, they have a great discussion about Child-Led Play. Check it out!