How Do I Improve My Child's Play Skills?: Complete Guide to Play

Play is an essential part of a child’s everyday life. In essence, it is their sole job and occupation to play. However, some children have difficulty with play skill development. After all, play is such an abstract concept that requires social interaction, self-regulation, emotional development, and executive functioning skills. No wonder it can be so difficulty for our children to interact with each other.

In this guide, I will address the different stages of play, play milestones, improving play development skills in your child, and simple activities to engage every child no matter what play stage they are in.

What Are the Benefits of Play?

• Play encourages creativity and imagination
• Play, especially pretend play, can improve communication and social skills
• Play enhances higher-thinking skills such as problem-solving, turn-taking, collaboration, and following rules
• Play can contribute to the development of emotional regulation and impulse control
• Physical play can improve physical well-being including strength, gross motor control, balance, and endurance for physical activity
• Children LEARN through PLAY!

Theories of Play

According to Dr. Mildred Parten, there are six stages of play including: unoccupied play, solitary (independent) play, onlooker play, parallel play, associative play, and cooperative play. As children develop and become older, they progress through the stages of play from the most basic being unoccupied and solitary play to the most complex being cooperative play. All stages are typical for children to progress through however, all develop at their own pace. The age associated with a stage of play does not necessarily mean that the child will master that stage in the given timeframe.

Play can also be classified in different ways. In 1968, Sara Smilansky developed the four play stages according to a child’s cognitive development including functional play (practice play), constructive play, Dramatic and symbolic play (pretend play), and games with rules.

• Functional- exploratory play in which children learn about their environment through their senses and how objects interact with each other
• Constructive- children begins to learn how to create structures with objects
• Dramatic & Symbolic- Children take on a role and pretend with real objects
• Games with Rules- Similar to cooperative play, children engage with an agreed upon set of rules

In 1978, researchers Rubin, Watson, & Jambor combined these stages by age group to make it easier to understand the play type and function including infants (solitary-functional), toddlers (parallel-functional), preschoolers (associative, constructive, and symbolic play), 4-5 year olds (cooperative-constructive, socio-dramatic, and beginning to play with rules), and kindergarten & school age (complex cooperative-constructive, soci0-dramatic, and games with rules).

For the sake of this guide, I will be referring to Parten’s six social stages of play.

What are the Types or Stages of Play?

• Unoccupied Play (0-3 months)- This play is often considered to be non-purposeful play. However, when babies or children are looking around a room, making random movements with arms and legs, and hearing things in their environment, they are learning about and interacting with their surroundings. This is the very start of your child’s journey through play.

• Solitary (Independent) Play (3 months- 2 years)- When your child engages in independent play, they are playing on their own and often don’t acknowledge or participate with peers in their environment. They are focused on their own activity and uninterested in what others are doing quite often.

• Onlooker (Spectator) Play (About 2 years)- This stage occurs when the child becomes slightly more interested in their peers and will start to watch or notice them playing. Though they are not engaging in the play with others, they are learning through observation.

• Parallel Play (2-3 years)- Parallel or side-by-side play occurs when the toddler or child plays next to or near another child, however does not yet engage in play with them though they may begin to imitate some of their actions or even play with the same toy. This is considered to be the transition stage from immature play to mature play.

• Associative Play (3-4 years)- Children will begin to share materials and play with others but may continue to follow their own set of rules. There is no shared goal or rules set during this type of play however the children are actively engaging with each other.

• Cooperative Play (4+ years)- This stage of play means that the child is able to consistently play with others and engage in play with set rules and guidelines. They are able to play within a group with a common goal and in turn work on essential life skills including turn-taking, controlling emotions, social interaction, flexibility, and problem-solving skills.

What are Toys My Child Can Use in Each Type of Play?

• Unoccupied Play: If your baby or toddler is in this stage, try to engage them by getting their attention. Great toys include mirrors while positioning them on their belly to see themself, black and white pictures to look at, and different textures for them to touch and explore.

• Solitary Play: Appropriate toys for this stage would include cause and effect in nature such as light up toys or ones that make noise when you push a button. Even simple musical instruments like a rattles, shakers, drums. OR make your own by giving your little one a pot and wooden spoon to bang together and make some music together.

• Onlooker Play: If your child frequently watches you or peers during play, make an effort to point things out about other children playing “i.e. his blue truck is big” and have your child play with their toys close in proximity to the other children so that they become more comfortable near peers.

• Parallel Play: Children are starting to understand the back and forth of play such as passing a ball or car to one another. They may also engage in a shape sorter, blocks, and puzzles due to their constructive skills developing further at this stage.

• Associative Play: Your child will begin to share their toys and materials with others during this stage. They may enjoy games they can complete with some assistance from peers such as crafts, building in the sandbox, and pretend play objects such as play food, and doctors kits.

• Cooperative Play: If your child is in this stage, they are ready for games with rules and play with an end goal such as building a fort, playing house or school, dress up clothes, basic board games, and are learning about turn taking and sharing more readily.

Play Tip: Meet your child at the play stage they are at and help them expand! If they are spending a lot of time in parallel play with peers, help them initiate associative by offering a toy or materials they will have to share such as sand toys or sidewalk chalk.

What is the Difference Between Structured and Unstructured Play?

Structured play is considered to be “play with a purpose.” Though structured play does not have a be formal, it is often “instructor led” such as by a parent or teacher. When a child engages in structured play, they are engaging in an activity that has set rules and limitations such as a board game or puzzle. Even simply having your toddler engage in a catch and throw activity or Simon Says with you can be considered structured.

Unstructured play is when your child engages in something that interests or motivates them. There are no guidelines to play, hence it’s unstructured. Unstructured activities include playing at the playground, and exploring nature outside.

Both structured and unstructured play is important for your child’s development and of course,  balance is key.

Play Milestones & Promoting Play Skill Development

Play Milestones for Your Baby at 6-12 Months

• Eye contact that lasts for a few seconds
• Smiling and laughing in response to play
• Enjoys playing simple games such as peek a boo
• Explores and manipulate objects with hands and mouth
• Transfers objects from one hand to the other
• Is able to find a hidden object
• Bangs objects or will imitate shaking of a toy
• Imitating some actions of the adult
• Vocalizes or turns to their name being said

How To Promote Play Skills for My Baby

Movement play: GET YOUR BABY MOVING! Infant equipment is not the way to go when trying to promote and enhance play for your baby. In order to learn about their environment, babies need to move!

• Sidelying play: Rolling your baby into their side is a wonderful way to promote reaching that is easier for your baby as they have to do less work in this position. Incorporate toys that are visual motivating (colorful, textured) so that they are interested to reach for them and maybe even try rolling to their belly.
• Tummy time play: Tummy time is essential to your babies play skills and motor development. It helps them develop head control, neck, arm, and shoulder strength, and helps them learn how to use their body in the earliest stage of development. Use a mirror and light up toys as well as placing them on a therapy ball on their belly to make tummy time fun! Please refer to my Tummy Time Article if you are struggling to complete tummy time with your infant.
• Sitting play: Sometimes, parents believe that once their baby is able to sit on their own, they have met this milestone. However, think about how often your baby will need to either transition out of sitting to crawl or reach for a toy that is not within reach requiring them to lean to the side. A great way to develop their sitting balance is to have them reach to the side and overhead for toys. Use a toy that lights up or makes a funny noise and have them try to grab it!
• Standing play: By about 18 months, your child will be more confident in walking on their own. Challenge there play by creating a trail of small toys or cheerios for them to trying to squat and pick up to work on their lower body strength and balance.

Object permanence play: This skill usually appears around 4-7 months. Babies learn that when an object disappears, it is not gone forever. Before this age, they may believe their favorite toy or blanket is gone forever if it is not in their line of sight.

• To refine their skill of object permanence, play peek a boo and hide and seek with toys and talk to baby when you are out of sight so that they can learn that when something disappears it is not gone forever

Visual regard and tracking play: At about 3-4 months, infants will begin to following a moving object with their eyes for very brief periods of time.

• In order to facilitate this skill, help your baby work on constantly tracking to you in a room by standing in different locations throughout the room with a preferred toy and have them find you or seeing how long they will watch you as you dance back and forth across the room. Afterall, every baby loves to watch a silly show!

Play Milestones for Your Toddler at 12-36 Months

1-2 Years:

• Established eye contact
• Claps when prompted
• Will offer toys to others
• Can identify self in the mirror
• Begins to imitate pretend play actions such as giving a doll a drink
• Imitates familiar actions for songs such as wheels on the bus
• Can identify themselves in the mirror
• Follows simple directions such as “pick up the toy”
• Often points to communicate needs but vocabulary is expanding to words such as mama, dada, hi, bye, and please

2-3 Years:

• Beginning to verbalize their wants/needs (i.e. I want a drink)
• Plays alongside other children (parallel play)
• Uses symbols during play such as a banana becomes a phone (symbolic play)
• Will imitate pretend play actions of peers or adult
• Sentences with 3-4 words
• Points to pictures and objects in a book and starts to name them
• Copies others frequently
• May start to include others in play such as during chasing games
• Follows a simple 2-step direction readily
• Throws a ball overhead and kicks a ball
• Completes a 2-4 piece puzzle

How To Promote Play Skills for My Toddler: Learning About Function & Pretend Play

When your toddler is young, they learn from others in their day to day world. As a caregiver, you play a huge role in your child developing play skills necessary to succeed. Here are some ways to work on promoting play skills for your toddler:

• Parent imitation: The first step to promoting play is to work on imitating your child’s play. If they zoom their car up the side of the couch, you take your own car and do the same. This will help them understand the reciprocity or back and forth of play. However, always make sure that you and your child are playing with separate toys
  • Play tip: Position yourself across from your child during play so that they can give you eye contact and see you imitating them

• Child imitation through parent modeling: The next play skill would be to have your toddler imitate you by modeling different play skills such as gesturing and pretend play.
  • Have your child try to imitate gestures such as through simple simon says (i.e. “So Big” or “Hands on belly”) or songs like the wheels on the bus to have them work on timing of movements and imitation of gestures
  • Pretend play: use a telephone or banana to pretend to talk to someone and ask your toddler to say hello or pretend to feed the doll with a spoon
    • Play tip: Children learn skills through play and repetition! Use appropriate language repetitively for your child so that they learn how to communicate with peers during play “Hi! I’m Sarah,” “Can I play?”, “My turn?”, and “Thank you.”

• Following directions during play: Remember how we talked about the importance of structured play for your children? This play is so important because it helps them develop the ability to follow verbal and visual directions when given. In order to work on this play skill, use 1-2 step directions during play and during everyday routines to help your child understand the structure, enhance understanding language skills, and their memory
  • Play ideas: Create an obstacle course adding steps one by one once your child has mastered them such as having them crawl through a box, climb over pillow stepping stones, and crash into a pile of cushions. This also helps them work on essential motor planning skills, balance, and strength.

Play Milestones for Your Preschooler at 3-4 Years

• Plays with 2-3 children in a group (associative play)
• Begins to treat dolls and teddy bears as if they are real (pretend play)
• Will take turns with other children
• Would rather play with other children than by themselves
• Can name some colors, numbers, begins to count, writes some capital letters
• Can play simple board or card games
• Sometimes can’t tell what’s real and what’s make believe

Play Milestones for Your Kindergartener at 4-5 Years

• Engages in simple games with set rules and shared play goals (cooperative play)
• Will talk about their feelings
• Engages in play with themes such as playing house or school
• Improves ability to take turns and share with others

How To Promote Play Skills for My Preschoolers & Kindergarteners

At age 3-6, your child is honing their play skills in everything they do. At preschool and kindergarten, they are beginning to interact more and more with their peers and enjoy doing so. Sometimes, peer interaction can be difficult for a child, if they are delayed socially or have a limited understanding of different emerging play rules such as turn taking and sharing.

When will my child share and take turns during play?

Children often have difficulty understanding the concept of how to share and take turns. The thought of giving up their toy to a peer seems unbearable to a child who has not yet learned these key concepts. However, by learning these skills, our children will be better able to communicate with others and improve emotional regulation.

What are the Stages of Sharing?

• Stage 1 (2-3 years): Child believes that everything is theirs often stating, “mine” frequently when playing with their toys
• Stage 2 (3-5 years): Beginning to learn that some things belong to others
• Stage 3 (4-5 years): Child is starting to understand that if they share their toy, they will get it back eventually. They are more likely to share when they see their toy come back and when other children share with them.

How to Practice Sharing:

• Have your child switch toys with a peer for two minutes; If needed, you can set a visual timer in order to help them understand that they will get it back
• Distract your child with something else that sounds too good not to move onto to another toy/game/activity. If you make it sound exciting then they may happily give the initial toy up more easily.

*If your child has a special toy or blanket, these objects do not need to be shared with others. They need to understand that their own belongings will be respected and the idea of ownership

*Research has proven that most children have difficulty with sharing until they are about 7-8 years old however there are ways to promote this skill for your child even so

How to Practice Turn Taking:

• Whenever possible, prompt your child to point to themselves and say “my turn” when they want to play with a toy someone else has
• Distract the child who is giving it up if they are not content taking turns with something else or even see if you can share rather than take turns. This may or may not be acceptable to either child and sometimes it works while at other times it does not.
• When a child wants something, they often want it immediately and do not feel like waiting to get it. Try to make it fun for your child by playing games that do not require them to wait for long at first such as “hot potato” with stuffed animals.

How To Promote Play Skills for My School Age Child:

6-8 Years:

• Improves ability to engage in games and play with rules
• Engages in negotiating during play
• Plays in small groups and make up their own games with rules, especially with children of the same gender
• May experience difficulty with losing

How To Promote Play Skills for My School Age Child:

• Encourage physical activity in any way possible such as:
  • Taking trips to the playground
  • Riding bikes
  • Encouraging them to join organized sports
  • Dancing to music
  • Exploring nature

The Benefits of Organized Sports & Hobbies

Even if your child says that they don’t enjoy sports, there are many options to get them involved in structured sport or activities such as gymnastics, community basketball, yoga, competitive frisbee, or golf. Being on a team teaches children how to be part of a larger group, depend on other people, and obey rules, as well as learn how to regulate their emotions around winning, losing, and being a team player.

Play Tip:

• Talk to your child about the rules of games, reinforcing how you play to have fun versus winning, and talk about how it’s okay to not win all the time

How to Know if Your Child is Struggling to Engage in Play

Many children, regardless of diagnosis, have difficulty engaging in play at one point or another. However, if you notice some of these red flags happening for your child, consult their pediatrician to receive an occupational therapy referral.

Red Flags May Include:

• Poor sustained attention and concentration
• Quickly transitioning from one task to the next
• Difficulty with turn taking and sharing (over the age of 5)
• Poor emotional regulation when they “lose” a game
• Has difficulty understanding what other people may be feeling
• Difficulty identifying, expressing, and regulating their emotions
• Difficulty making or maintaining friendships
• Limited interest or repetitive tendencies with toys and play
• Prefers to play alone
• Does not understand cause and effect or consequences of their actions often presenting as poor safety awareness

Best,

Sarah

Resources:

Parten, M (1932). "Social participation among preschool children". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 28 (3): 136–147.

Parten, M (1932). “Social participation among preschool children”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

http://docs.childaction.org/handouts/Handout13-Importance_of_Play_EN.pdf

Preschool for Parents: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Preschool. Washington, DC: Teaching Strategies, Inc. (1998).

https://childdevelopment.com.au/areas-of-concern/play-and-social-skills/