Analytic of Child Pretend Play Observation - Case Study Example

ANALYTIC COMMENTARY ON CHILD PRETEND PLAY OBSERVATION BY The two five-year-old children observed for children’s pretend play, Justina and Justine pretended to be their parents during the telephone play. After getting quickly bored, the girls turned to another pretend play where one of them acted as the mother and the other acted as a baby. After the pretend play, the girls along with their mother went to the park where Justina, being more open, started playing with the other children immediately. On the other hand, Justine was slightly shy and took a while to be comfortable with the other children. According to Garvey (1991) pretend play is the ‘‘voluntary transformation of the here and now, the you and me, and the this or that, along with any potential action that these components of a situation might have’’ (Garvey, 1991). Numerous development psychologists observe in children’s play clear correspondence to their existing stage of cognitive development. The theoretical foundation for this observation comes largely from the works of Jean Piaget, the Swiss developmental psychologist. Piaget (1954) has been greatly concerned with child’s cognitive development and associates the different types of play one observes in children of different ages as an indication of the increasing intricacy of the child’s intellectual ability. The early beginning of play can be observed in sensorimotor behavior, as when babies kick their feet while being bathed for the sheer pleasure of the feel and sight of splashing water. Later sensorimotor play goes away from the baby’s own body to incorporate objects and relations between objects and to involve other people (Cole & Cole 2001). At the age of Justine and Justina, pretend play becomes increasingly social and increasingly complex. The girls combined their capacity for understanding pretense to cooperate with each other at planning their pretend activities; they named and assigned roles that they were enacting, they also used toys to make the situation look real (Howes, Unger & Matheson 1992). This is visible from the fact that the girls, in the telephone play, assigned roles of the mother and the father to each other and to make the situation more real, used their plastic telephone and talked to each other like real adults. It is quite obvious that the girls behaved according to the theory which suggests that children act out others thoughts and actions by assigning roles and planning the activities (Lillard 1998). Thus, pretend plays are among the most complex social interactions that children have (Pellegrini & Bjorklund 2004). Looking at the observation from a different perspective suggests that there are certain gender-related issues in role-taking. As already mentioned, both the girls preferred to become their mother in the pretend play. The telephone play also suggests that the roles that the girls took of their parents were also stereotyped; the mother is cooking while the father is at the office, working. The reason behind this is that, parents are the primary influence on gender role development during the early childhood. The parents are the first ones who the children observe and set-up as a role model. Therefore, whatever the parents do, children try to copy it and act in the similar ways. This sets the route for stereotyping the male and female gender in their specific roles (Kohlberg 1966). The subject-matter of the play greatly reflects the specific events taking place in the child’s home, as in the case of the observation (Brown et al. 1996). Similarly, participating in fantasy plays with siblings, or while discussing about it (Brown et al. 1996), children are expected to get exposure to make-believe ideas, abilities for bargaining, the sharing of imaginations, and healthy role-taking experience. Sibling relations offer a significant environment for the development of children’s comprehension of their social, affective, moral and cognitive surroundings. In particular, siblings play a vital part in the development of children’s understanding of others’ minds, especially their understanding of emotions, thoughts, objectives and beliefs (Brown et al. 1996). Young siblings who participate in regular pretend play display a superior understanding of others’ emotions and are more probable to create shared meanings in play (Brown et al. 1996). Therefore, when Justina and Justine participated in the pretend play, both the girls were able to communicate with each other on the same level. They understood what the other person was thinking and tried to act accordingly. Through pretend play, children have chances to experience and perform the central emotional components. For example, children demonstrate emotional intelligence when they role-play a situation in which they show identification with others such as parents, teachers, etc. In certain fantasy plays, the children demonstrate what their mothers, fathers or significant others talk about and how do they act in such circumstances. Through facial signals, language, and physical actions they play back the truth as they have experienced them in real life situations (Bruce 2004). Intellectually, the play provided Justine and Justina a situation for using language to communicate and using the mind to imagine and plan strategies. This means that the girls were vigorously experimenting with the social and emotional roles of life (Lillard 1993). Through mutual play, they learnt how to take turns, share responsibility, and solve problems (Lillard 1993). This is evident from the fact that the girls took turns being the mother and when the problem arose of being the mother again, they mutually decided on the matter. Thus, the girls showed superior intellectual skills of problem-solving and teamwork during pretend play as compared to performing other activities, suggesting that plays promote cognitive development (Pellegrini, Dupuis & Smith 2007). On the other hand, there is a major question from the researcher regarding the fact that whether the incidence of these developing abilities is confirmation of a shared or cause-and-effect relationship. This means that whether fantasy, linguistics and cognition are all components of an integrated system or does child’s participation in pretend play results in the cognitive and language development. This question is yet to be answered but the significance of pretense in the cognitive development of children cannot be denied (Collwell & Lindsey 2005). When a child takes up different characters in a pretend play, he or she has become familiar with the notion of walking in someone elses shoes, which helps in educating him or her about the essential moral development skill of empathy (Kwon & Yawkey 2000). It is usual for young children to observe the world from their own point of view, but through maturation and joint play, the child will start to consider the feelings of others (Kwon & Yawkey 2000). During the observation when that Justina was making the soup and Justine cried because of hunger and kept on crying until she was fed by her ‘mother’. Even though, this does show that Justina might have gained a better understanding of her mother’s feelings during such a situation but this process is gradual as initially the children are only imitating their parents and do not critically analyze the way their parents feel in certain situations (Kwon & Yawkey 2000). The observation suggests that Justina, as compared to her sister was more outgoing because as soon as they entered the park, Justina ran towards the children and started playing with them (Collwell & Lindsey 2005). Pretend play has a great significance for young children’s peer relationships. Consistent with this argument, evidence indicates that children who participate in high-quality pretend play experience social advantages, especially by being better liked by peers (Collwell & Lindsey 2005). This might be because of the social abilities they gain and the role-taking experience that they have, that they are inclined to be more grown-up in a social context and are well-liked among peers (Howes, Unger & Matheson 1992). On the other hand, the theory fails to explain Justine’s behavior because even though, she participates in pretend play with her sister, but she is still shy around other children and needs the others to take the initiative to include her in the games. Thus, children participating in pretend play enhance their ability to interact with other children in a social setting but there are certain exceptions (Howes, Unger & Matheson 1992). There is an increasing section suggesting a positive association between high-quality pretend play and growth of cognitive abilities. If the children do not get the opportunity to experience such activities, their abilities of thought processes, problem-solving, social cognition as well as language, mathematics and science may be negatively influenced. These intricate and multifaceted abilities concerning numerous areas of the brain are most expected to flourish in an environment prospering in high-quality pretend play (Russell & Jarvis 2003). Childrens cognitive development and pretend plays as interactive components of cognition are of growing interest. To have a high self-esteem and be an optimistic person, children utilize pretend play as opportunities to discover ways to deal with their feelings, to consider others feelings, and to grow healthy emotional outlets (Shaffer, Kipp & Shaffer 2009). To become emotionally capable, parents and caregivers have to support childrens proper expression of feelings, offer warm interactions with children, and be role models for constructive emotional expressions. REFERENCES Brown, JR, Donelan-McCall, N & Dunn, J 1996, ‘Why talk about mental states? The significance of children’s conversations with friends, siblings, and mothers’, Child Development, vol. 67, pp. 836–849. Bruce, T 2004, ‘Developing learning in early childhood’, Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd., United Kingdom. Cole, M & Cole SR 2001, ‘The development of children’, Worth Publishers, United States of America. Collwell, MJ & Lindsey, EW 2005, ‘Preschool children’s pretend play and physical play and sex of play partner: connection to peer competence’, Sex Role, vol. 52, no. 7/8, pp. 497-509. Garvey, C 1991, ‘Play’, Fontana Press, United States of America. Howes, C, Unger, O & Matheson, CC 1992, ‘The collaborative construction of pretend: social pretend play functions (suny series, children play in society),’ Stare University of New York Press, New York. Kohlberg, L 1966, ‘A cognitive-developmental analysis of children’s sex-role concepts and attitudes’, The development of sex differences, edited by Eleanor E. Maccoby, pp. 82-173. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kwon, JY & Yawkey, TD 2000, ‘Principles of emotional development and children’s pretend play’, International Journal of Childhood, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 9-13. Lillard, AS 1998, ‘Pretend play as twin earth: a social-cognitive analysis,’ Developmental Review, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 495-531. Lillard, AS 1993, ‘Pretend play skills and child’s theory of mind’, Child Development, vol. 64, no. 2, pp. 348-371. Pellegrini, AD, Dupuis, S & Smith, PK 2007, ‘Play in evolution and development’, Developmental Review, vol. 27, pp. 261-276. Pellegrini, AD & Bjorklund DF 2004, ‘The ontogeny and phylogeny of children’s object and fantasy play,’ Human Nature, vol. 15, pp. 23–43. Piaget, J 1954, ‘The construction of reality in children’. Basic Books, New York. Russell, J & Jarvis, M 2003, ‘Angels on applied psychology’, Nelson Thornes, United Kingdom. Santrock, JW 2002, ‘Life-span development’, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., United States of America. Shaffer, DR, Kipp, K & Shaffer DR 2009, ‘Developmental psychology: childhood and adolescence’, Wadsworth Publishing, United Stated of America. Read More