Rules for playing with a baby
Mothers often ask questions such as: “Why doesn’t my baby play with his own toys?”, “Why does he have no interest in playing?” But they never think that the reason lies in themselves - adults.Indeed, young children under one or two years old quickly lose interest in everything. They can play with the toy for a while and then put it away. There is a mountain of toys on the floor - but your child is not interested in them. We bought a new construction set - the child played with it and threw it away.
Why is this happening? Why doesn't the child play with his toys?
The reason is that children younger age don't know how to play. They need to be taught this. “How to teach a child to play?” - you ask.
The fact is that children in the game copy the actions of adults, that is, their mother. Therefore, a child’s interest in toys appears when the mother plays with the baby and plays correctly. The mother should imagine herself as a small child and play enthusiastically with him. The emotional component is very important. You need to say what you feel: “Look how tall the tower is!”, “Look how bright the car is!”, “You have a very beautiful house!”
At first, the child will not play much on his own. Basically it will watch your actions and possibly break what you have built. This should be treated normally - the baby participates in the game in the way that he can. Be sure to include an emotional exclamation: “Bang-bang! The tower is broken! Hooray!".
In addition to the above, there are a number of rules that, if followed, will help you easily teach your child to play with toys independently:
- The game must be completed before the child will disappear interest in the game.
- After finishing the game, do not let it lie under your baby’s feet. For example, put the box with the designer on a shelf. The child will look at this box and will look forward to the game. When you take out the construction set, he will be happy to play with it. It is very important that toys do not lie on the floor, so that each toy has its own place.
- You need to put things in order together with your baby immediately after playing. This will keep the room clean and teach your child order.
Show interest in reading
Now let’s figure out how to show your child’s interest in books, how to create anticipation for reading.
The child is still small, he cannot read. We still look at the colorful images on the book, voice what we see and read out loud. If, while reading, you remembered some incident from life, also voice it, coloring it emotionally: “Do you remember yesterday, on the street, we saw a bird?”
Reading a book should also be finished before the child switches to another game, before he gets tired. It is very important to teach your child to sit calmly and focused for at least a minute when you read to him.
Children can listen with interest to the same fairy tale at least 100 times. While they are little, they love familiar, familiar stories. Don’t strive for variety; read your child’s favorite books many times.
And we make sure to finish reading before the baby loses interest in it.
What toys should I buy for children?
Do not rush to buy new toys if all the rooms in the house are already littered with them.
Instead, prepare a box, put some of the toys there and hide it from the child.
When your child has had enough of playing with the toys he has on hand, take out a box of folded toys. The child will miss the toys and will play with them with pleasure! Then put in this box those toys that the child no longer arouses interest in. You will get them after a while. And so in a circle...
But still, what toys should you pay attention to when buying?
Advice: don’t rush to buy the most expensive and complex toys. Just imagine, if you buy a car with a remote control, it has limited opportunities and there is absolutely no room for the child’s imagination. It may not travel on all surfaces, it is programmed. What if it's an ordinary car? A simple car can go anywhere and any way. The child will fantasize on his own if you help him.
Another example is an ordinary and expensive doll. The expensive doll is also programmed and can only speak 5 phrases. And if a child voices a simple doll himself, he can come up with anything!
Learning by playing
It is important to teach a small child during play, at ease. To do this, you need to focus on what you teach: color, shape, smell, taste, etc.
For example, if you are building a house out of blocks, emphasize: “yellow block”, “blue block”, “give me a red block”, “yes, this is a blue block, but give me a green block”.
When teaching through games, one should not forget about emotions. How you present information is important.
On the playground, in the kindergarten, it is not uncommon to see children who do not know how to play. To prevent this from happening to your child, play together! Take a ball for both yourself and your child. Show the movements and comment: “the ball can fly!”, “look, it rolled!”, “the ball is jumping!”. So, while having fun, the child will learn to play independently and will not be bored in kindergarten and while walking on the street.
Knowing these little tricks and tips, you will know how to play with your child correctly, and you will be able to raise an independent and smart child! Good luck!
Very often you can hear from mothers: “My child doesn’t want to play with anything, although there are a lot of toys. So many different toys lie idle, he can only scatter them, and then he just wanders around the apartment after me: he likes to wash the floors with me and tinker in the kitchen. You can only occupy yourself with cartoons for a while.”
Normally, at the turn of 1 and 2 years of life, the child actively manipulates toys, and the adult not only names the object, but also draws the baby’s attention to its intended purpose, which the child can display in his game (the car drives and hums). By the end of the second - beginning of the third year of life, a plot-display game is formed, in which children begin to actively display the impressions received in everyday life (cradling a doll). From 3 to 7 years old, the main place is occupied by one’s own role-playing game.
Play is the leading activity of preschoolers; all subsequent development, education and upbringing of the child is built on its basis, which is why it is so important to understand the “toy issue” in a timely manner.
How more toys- the worse the game.
Almost every person, coming to visit a house where there is a child, considers it his duty to bring a toy as a gift. They are stored next to those that mom and dad dreamed about in childhood and simply could not help but buy for their baby. And nearby there are also “developers”, which were acquired in pursuit of early learning and development.
It turns out that almost anyone modern child There are more toys than are useful for him to have. There are too many of them, therefore they are not of any value. Such a number of toys will only “work” in a properly organized “game world”.
Where do the toys live?
If there are really a lot of toys, it is better to divide them, for example, into three parts. Place two of them in an inaccessible place, and under no circumstances simply dump the remaining ones in a box. It is desirable that the toys be located at eye level and sorted (constructors, cars, animals, etc.). Psychologists have noticed that a child plays better as long as he can disrupt this storage system, take it out, open it, and destroy order. If a child sits in a pile of toys from the beginning of the game, most likely he will simply scatter them.
And who will clean up?
Of course, many parents find it easier and faster to remove toys themselves. But it should be remembered that the habit of participating in cleaning is easier to develop before the age of three. Don't leave your child alone to tidy up toys. Cleaning is best done with the participation of mom and in games (toys in houses, who is faster, etc.). In this case, there should be as many toys freely available as the child can remove with the help of an adult.
“Wrong” and “right” toys.
First of all, it is better to leave multifunctional toys that are suitable for both object and role-playing games (balls, large construction sets, ordinary dolls, cutlery, cars, etc.) freely available. Often toys are not used for their intended purpose, they can be dropped or bitten, so the material of the toy should be non-toxic, well-painted, and impact-resistant.
Pay attention to the color, it should be natural. However, the toy should not be exactly like the model (for example, an overly detailed toy iron), but should leave room for the development of imagination. Therefore, toys that begin to spin, blink, sing, or actively move with one touch of a button are not the best choice. They reduce the game to primitive button pressing, where the effort expended and the effect obtained do not correspond to each other.
The most important.
An adult's help is not only about choosing the right toy. It's important to bring it into play. Psychologist L.S. Vygotsky spoke of the “zone of proximal development.” This law says that at every age there is an activity that:
1 The child can do it himself;
2 Can with the help of an adult;
3 Can't do it at all.
This range of things that a child can do independently develops only due to what he did together with an adult. Those. when the activity is performed together, the child develops faster and more safely.
In order for a child to play BY HIMSELF, an adult must first play WITH him.
Often the child chooses his favorite “mom’s toys” - a telephone, pots in the kitchen. To teach your child to play independently with toys, you can do the following:
— Choose a toy and play with your child with this particular toy for several minutes every day for two weeks. Those. the toy is filled with the “presence of an adult” and methods of use are learned;
- Play on an equal footing, don’t try to introduce a lot of rules, it’s better to have fun with your child.
— The chosen game must correspond to the age and skills of the child, because if he fails to master the game, he loses interest in it. Remember that educational games work when there is an adult interested in development nearby who will show you how to play and help at the right time.
Don't refuse.
Quite often, when talking with parents, it turns out that the busiest mothers and fathers, who offer the baby to play on his own, have children who do not like and do not know how to play with toys. Remember that things will never end, there will always be a pile of dishes, and the floors will be dirty, and childhood only happens once, do not deny your children the joy of being with you.
Are a lot of toys good or bad for a baby’s development?
Very often you can hear from mothers: “My child does not play. Toys are not interesting to him. He is much more willing to fiddle around with me in the kitchen, and the most various toys They’re lying idle in the nursery!”
Is this situation normal and what is its reason? Do I need to do something, or will the baby start playing more and better over time?
Nowadays, the situation with children's games and toys is not at all as simple and problem-free as it seems at first glance. Let's talk about the baby's "toy farm" from the point of view of its benefits for personality development.
Reasons for overstocking
As a rule, any modern child, almost regardless of the family’s income level, has many more toys than he needs and is useful to have. There are several reasons for this “overstocking”.
1. The cherished wishes of dad and mom. When a baby appears in the family, both parents (and especially the parent whose gender matches the gender of the newborn child) begin to buy those toys that they dreamed of in childhood and did not have.
The peak of this kind of purchases occurs in the period from one to three years. And this parental desire cannot be condemned in any way - one can only be aware of it and try to control it.
Mothers enthusiastically buy doll sets and cribs, strollers, as well as the dolls themselves in commercial quantities. Dads buy impressively sized railroads, all sorts of cars, gas stations, and even, to the horror of moms, weapons.
2. Gifts- the second reason for turning the nursery into a toy warehouse. For any occasion, grandparents and other guests bring. It is considered simply bad manners to come into a house where there is a child and not bring him a toy as a gift. As a rule, soft.
It happens that at the turn of the second year of life, a child’s toy possessions increase many times over in a matter of weeks. But he doesn't play.
Parents sometimes even get angry: “He has such toys, each of which, if I had had them as a child, would have simply squealed with happiness, but he has no emotions.”
Unfortunately, this is exactly the case when the number of toys and the quality of the game are inversely proportional. That is, the more toys, the worse the game.
Remember the famous episode from “The Flower of Seven Flowers” - the girl Zhenya says: “I want all the toys in the world to be mine.” And then she herself doesn’t know what to do with them, because playing with such an unimaginable amount of everything doesn’t even occur to her. Unfortunately, many children today find themselves in a very similar situation.
3. The pursuit of "early development." A significant part of a modern child’s toy possessions consists of educational and educational toys. There are a lot of them now, and parents can buy literally everything without looking closely at the age restrictions on the box with a game or toy.
Of course, a child should have educational and developmental toys. The whole question is in quantity, quality and method of application. a child can use it adequately only when there is an interested adult nearby who will kindly show the child exactly what can be done with this toy.
If educational games and toys lie “in heaps” in boxes with other toys, scattered and mixed up, then such educational toys are of almost no use. And your child is unlikely to use it for its intended purpose.
4. Incredible variety. It is still difficult for post-Soviet people to get used to the huge supply of virtually any product item. Not knowing how to choose, we sometimes buy everything.
We often think that more is better. In reality, in matters of education, everything often turns out to be different.
So a large number of toys only makes sense if the play space is .
Creation of play space and its organization
When arranging a nursery, remember that for a child, the things that surround him are... And you’re not hanging shelves and arranging cabinets at all - you’re creating a universe in which your baby will grow and learn everything.
Order and disorder. If your baby has already begun to crawl or walk, toys simply thrown into a box or basket will not work.
Psychologists and teachers believe that the optimal location of toys is at the child’s eye level, on shallow open shelves. That is, a rack tightly screwed to the wall is best suited for toys. (This kind of rack should not be confused with a toy storage system, which must be located in a place inaccessible to children. It is good if the toys in the storage system are distributed by type and are in closed, opaque boxes.)
Remember that until about 3 years old, a child plays much better if his mother keeps the play shelves in order. The fact is that children at this age are not able to create what experts call “good structure” for toys.
Simply put, the baby plays enthusiastically while he can destroy order and break the structures created by his mother. And as soon as everything is destroyed, interest in toys and games, as a rule, disappears.
Where do the toys live? Ideally, there is a play area in the children's room, and all the toys “live” there. For older children, the main object organizing the space of the play area can be a toy house.
It’s good for a child if small animals are kept separate, cars are kept separate, and construction sets are not mixed together. This makes it easier for the baby to learn to play, rather than create chaos around him.
Children love to have toys arranged in a variety of boxes, beautiful boxes and baskets. This makes it easier for kids to understand that each toy has its own house.
What to do with the quantity? One of the simple and affordable ways to make a toy new or almost new for a child is to put it away. The same method allows you to reduce the number of toys.
If you divide all the child’s toy possessions into 3 or 4 approximately equal parts, remove 3/4 and change the toy “exposition” once a week, the child will perceive his own toys almost as new.
Creating a “yes” environment. If you want your child to play well and freely, you should say the word “no” in the nursery as little as possible. This does not mean that the child does not need restrictions. It's just that game time is far from best time to introduce restrictions.
Children's play is an extremely important activity. In the game, the child comprehends the world of human relations and the structure of the world in general. A person deprived of play in childhood is inevitably mentally disabled.
Play is a space for a child’s free creativity, and a sharp “no” from a mother or nanny can tear this play space apart, thin cloth the game will be interrupted, and the child will not be able to continue playing with the same inspiration.
The restrictions that exist in the nursery and regarding toys should be simple, understandable, constant and minimal. Decide in advance what exactly your child should not do with toys. And it’s best to put away items that cause a flood of prohibitions or great anxiety in adults. The fact is that if it is repeated often, the child either learns to ignore it, or develops excessive stubbornness through everyday resistance.
The art of choosing toys
Toys, like book illustrations, and the nursery environment largely shape the child’s aesthetic world and tastes. Choose toys of the aesthetic direction that is closest to you, parents. Choose toys that you think are beautiful.
Let's start with quantity. Everything is simple here: there should be as many toys freely available as a child, with the organizing help of an adult, can relatively easily remove.
How to identify the “wrong” toy?
"Wrong" toy made from the wrong (unnatural) material, painted in unnatural colors that do not exist in nature. The “wrong” toy is too similar to the real thing (for example, a small toy iron is just like a large iron). This excessive similarity leaves no room for the development of the child’s imagination: the toy is already too similar to the model, there is no need to imagine anything.
The "wrong" toys often use the button principle. The baby presses a button, and from this simple movement the lights light up, the wheels begin to spin, everything comes into motion. That is, the effort expended absolutely does not correspond to the result obtained. And it does not allow the formation of cause-and-effect relationships, which means that intelligence develops in a completely different way than when playing with. Where “pushed - it rolled” or “hit - flew off”.
The craving for early easy impressions, for the fact that almost everything around is entertainment, is deposited very deeply. It’s clear that we live in a push-button civilization—but why? bigger baby V preschool childhood sees things whose operating principles are obvious and accessible to him, the better his logical thinking will be developed.
Children have a great interest in manual labor - both male and female. They look very carefully at what is done with their hands. And if dad nails a nail or drills a wall, then for the baby it’s just a celebration of learning about adult life.
But, unfortunately, if examples of female manual labor can be seen (for example, in the kitchen), then in many families it is all male manual labor comes down to working on a computer keyboard. And this is natural - this is the stage of development of civilization.
And yet, I would highly recommend that fathers of little boys at least occasionally do with them what has been a man’s part of housework for centuries. This will be a much more educational activity for them than many educational games.
The right toy multifunctional. That is, it can be used by many different ways in a variety of games.
Classic example multifunctional toy— . You can throw it and roll it, it can become a doll watermelon or a fairy-tale bun. The smaller the child, the more of his toys should be multifunctional.
The right toy is made from environmentally friendly material (natural fabric, wood, metal, leather). Of course, completely without plastic toys It’s unlikely to be possible, but you can strive to keep their percentage as low as possible. In addition, the toy must be made of impact-resistant, non-toxic, durable materials - in the hope that Small child will gnaw on it, and bite it, and drop it, and different ways use for other purposes.
Many Chinese toys are simply not designed for such active use. They only look like toys, but they break within the first week. The child does not have time to play enough with this toy or become attached to it. A real toy should be of high quality and strong.
About cleaning up toys. Self-Reliance Skills
There is a wonderful Russian proverb: “If you love to ride, love to carry a sleigh.” She says, as you understand, that you need to be responsible for the consequences of your actions.
For a child who is about to turn two years old, such things begin to be accessible if parents consider it necessary and correct to spend time and effort on cleaning up toys together or the child’s participation in cleaning the table.
According to most psychologists, it is beneficial for a child’s development to have minimal household responsibilities. It is by doing chores around the house every day that a person develops the ability to take responsibility for himself, concentrate his attention, and try to finish what he has started. By saving a child from the “trouble” of collecting toys, you will not help him, but in some way will hinder him from understanding the world and himself in this world.
Naturally, for most parents and nannies it is much easier and calmer to remove the toys themselves. But if the habit of participating in cleaning the nursery does not arise early, before the child is three years old, then after that it will be much more difficult to form it, since the child will begin to resist more actively.
Try to find time, energy and imagination so as not to forcefully involve your child in cleaning up toys every night. The plots may be different, but the core is the same: at first the child cannot do such things on his own, without the participation of his mother.
What if there are several children in the family?
As a rule, the first children, the firstborns, become “tenant dwellers” - it is with them that the largest number of toys appear in the family. These children, becoming at first simply the eldest, and then the eldest in the family, long remember the period of their undivided dominion over the kingdom of toys and may be reluctant to let the emerging crown princes - brothers and sisters - into this world.
The basic rule can be formulated as follows: if there are several children in a family, then the bulk of the toys (approximately 80%) should be common, and it is necessary to agree on them: how to divide them, what to change for what, who will clean them up and when. But every child who is already 2 years old should have his own inviolable drawer, chest of drawers or chest with toys and the right not to share these toys. This approach will reduce the number of quarrels over toys and relieve children from a heightened sense of possessiveness.
We will discuss in detail how to arrange a nursery for two, three or several children in our next article.
Your child is growing by leaps and bounds. And from time to time the thought creeps into moms and dads: “Well, you’ll grow up a little more and you’ll be able to play by yourself, and I’ll have a couple of hours for myself.” However, this is not entirely true: in order for the baby to be able to occupy himself independently for 40-50 minutes, parents should make a lot of effort. We will tell you how to teach and entice your child to play alone.
The benefits of independent play
By playing independently, the baby learns to find solutions
V. A. Sukhomlinsky: “A game is a huge bright window through which a life-giving stream of ideas and concepts about the world around us flows into the spiritual world of a child. Play is the spark that ignites the flame of inquisitiveness and curiosity.”
Teaching your child the skills of independent play is important not in order to take up his time and allow himself to relax. Independent play is an important indicator proper development child. At the same time, the ability to find something to do has a significant impact on personal growth and the baby's character. In particular, playing with yourself develops:
- initiative (after all, solving specific game problems requires the little one to make quick decisions - a pyramid that unexpectedly appears on the path of the machine can be either moved or knocked down - the choice must be made instantly);
- the ability to overcome obstacles (this or that play activity has a certain plot, the development of which requires the child to find a way out of the current circumstances - if the baby doll wets his pants, then he needs to be changed);
- perseverance (to get the desired result of the game, the child must go through certain stages, for example, to assemble a beautiful puzzle ship, you should select all the elements correctly, trying to combine them);
- ability to navigate according to circumstances (to dress a doll for a trip to kindergarten, you need to choose appropriate clothes for her, put on all the details of the toilet in order);
- patience (to solve puzzles, the child has to look at the task several times and select answers).
Why doesn't he play by himself or can't occupy himself with toys?
Reluctance to play independently may be due to feelings of loneliness
A fairly common problem is when the baby does not want to play on his own. This alarms parents, but meanwhile the reasons for this behavior of the baby lie precisely in adults. The fact is that at 2-4 years old children develop the skill role playing game, that is, at this age dolls, cars, and animals are very interesting. Caring relatives understand this, and this is where the endless supply of toys begins. Remember your childhood: one or two dolls, a couple of cars and a wooden pyramid. But we could play with them for hours, inventing names for them, performing entire performances with such a simple set. No, you shouldn’t throw away the wonderful educational bears that teach counting, or the parking area for racing cars, just limit their number. Why? The child does not have time to become attached to the toy, feel it and unleash his imagination. In addition, children need an example. That is, if you don’t show them how to play with the car, then the child will not only not have an idea about the toy itself, but there will also be no impetus for further inventing a game plot.
As for older children, 5-7 years old, refusal to play independently at this age may indicate that the child is suffering from loneliness. If a child experiences a lack of communication with his parents, then it is absolutely logical that he will not want to be alone with even the funniest toys. It is important to let your child understand that this is a common game between you and him, but sometimes he can do it himself. Also at this age, children are very sensitive to failure. Therefore, if a child cannot complete a puzzle, he will not pore over it alone. Come and direct the toddler’s thoughts - this will give the necessary impetus to renew interest.
The baby must have at least a small, but own play area
The method of teaching a child to play independently is an inexhaustible topic of discussion among teachers and psychologists. All these studies can be combined into several effective advice for adults, then it will be easier to teach the baby.
The ability to play independently is an indicator of your baby’s maturation. However, there is no need to sound the alarm if he is not too eager to play alone yet. Patiently show your child how to play with this or that toy in an interesting way, so that he becomes interested in looking for new ways of entertainment. And be sure to participate in play activity praise your child - then he will grow up not only to be an independent person, but also to become a self-confident person.
Very often parents are faced with this problem: the child does not want to play with toys. It would seem an absurd situation. Moreover, all parents note that when the child goes to kindergarten, he begins to play with toys. Some complain that the child does not like to play with blocks. Others say that their child does not want to assemble the pyramid.
Of course, children have certain preferences in games: there are girls who do not like to play with dolls, and boys are sometimes more interested in birds than in playing with cars. But still, most likely, the child does not play because he simply does not know how to do it.
What instead of toys?
My son doesn't play with toys much either. He is more attracted to pots, spoons and other household items. Often he just stays next to me and “helps” me in all matters. He especially likes washing machine. Well, why is he almost not interested in bright, interesting toys?
This happens because the child copies the behavior of adults. Mom spends all day in the kitchen shuffling pots - and the child does the same. Mine, for example, really likes to “wash the dishes,” sort through the onions in the basket, and can spend quite a long time putting potato peelings into the trash can, one at a time.
But a child should also play with toys! If only because when he goes to kindergarten, he will not have access to pots there)).
Where is the exit?
It seems so natural to us that a child plays: rolls a car, talks to a doll, throws a ball, assembles a house out of Lego. But in fact, the child needs to be taught this. And if your child does not have older brothers, sisters or friends, then you will have to get down on the floor and start... playing!
Now every day I try to devote some time to games. When we start playing with our son, he becomes very animated and tries to do something with his own hands. He enjoys building a tower of blocks, connecting cars into a train, and loves to play ball. Although, when I’m busy in the kitchen, he can build a tower of cups with no less interest.
We have a set for puppet theater. My son not only loves to watch how the dolls on one of the adults’ hands walk and talk, but he also knows how to put a doll on his own hand. For some reason, he likes the frog the most. Perhaps because he learned to croak for her.
If he built a tower of blocks or put together a puzzle, then I always admire and try to praise him for doing it himself.
Why play with toys?
Of course, my son, like all children his age, loves to jump, run and ride on a swing. But I think that playing with toys, unless, of course, it’s a singing and dancing machine (and how can you play with that?) is very useful for development. While playing, the child develops imagination, spatial thinking and simply gets to know the world.
I recently bought cardboard magnets in the shape of forest animals for my son. Using them, he studies animals, remembers what sounds they make (the sounds we make for them, of course, ourselves). Recently we were surprised to notice that he attaches them to the refrigerator in groups - the big ones separately from the small ones. And the wolf is actually on the other side of the refrigerator: we are afraid of it.
By the way, it’s okay if a child plays with pots and spoons. Any game is about development and learning about the world. But what will we do when he wants to play with screwdrivers, scissors, and a hot iron? Therefore, let him get used to playing with toys.
Now we already know how to play different games. We love to build towers from cups, roll cars, and learn to assemble puzzles. True, as before, my son cannot sit down with toys for a long time alone. You definitely need to keep him company. But I try to push him towards this so that he learns to organize his own games. Sometimes I “give” him toys and offer him to play with them when I’m busy with something. I think with age he will get used to it and learn.
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