Here are some guidelines for the types of play your child may be most interested in at different stages, according to Catherine Marchant, a play therapist at Wheelock College in Boston:
Social play
Interacting with you and others is important throughout the first year. Infants like to smile, look, and laugh. Older babies enjoy games such as peekaboo and itsy-bitsy spider.
Object play
Touching, banging, mouthing, throwing, pushing, and otherwise experimenting with things is fascinating for the 4- to 10-month-old set.
Functional and representational play
Pretending to use familiar objects in an appropriate way — pushing a toy lawn mower over the grass, or calling Grandma with a hairbrush, for instance — is the height of fun for 12- to 21-month-olds as their imaginations begin to blossom.
Early symbolic play
This type of play, common around the age of 2, creates something out of nothing. Your child might play with a shoebox as if it were a school bus, complete with motor noises, for example, or pretend to eat a plastic ring, insisting it’s a doughnut.
Role play
Around 30 to 36 months your little actor will begin taking on new roles. Playing doctor, teacher, or mommy is common now.
0 comments:
Post a Comment