Children's Play Programs
While free play is a very important part of the childhood experience, it is not always possible or desirable that children are just left to play when, where and how they wish. Sometimes, their situation does not encourage or support free play. Sometimes, lack of social skills, shyness, cultural differences or other factors can limit the child’s ability to initiate play or to interact in a relaxed and enjoyable manner with other children. Often, working parents rely on supervised programs to provide safe and enjoyable care after school hours or during holidays.
Play programs can take a variety of forms. Some can be loosely programmed, providing resources and opportunities for free play in a supervised and contained situation. Others can involve structured play activities. Structure is not necessarily an impediment to play, but it must be carefully planned and managed to avoid losing the vital ‘play’ aspects of intrinsic motivation, optimal arousal and control.
Aside from the benefits of structure and predictability offered by play programs, there are other important benefits, some of which are listed below.
- A degree of structure can introduce children to play options that they might not otherwise have considered.
- A program can provide a range of stimuli and experiences for the child.
- A program can increase children’s opportunities for socialising with others of the same or other age groups.
- A program can make it easier for children to participate in group activities.
- A program can provide support for those children who need it, when they need it.
- A well-designed program can improve inclusiveness by providing a range of activities that meet different children’s needs.
- A program can provide an adult presence that can be very reassuring to young children, and agreeable to older children (who have been shown to seek out responsive adults for conversation).
- And very importantantly, a program, if properly managed, can decrease the likelihood of anti-social, bullying or excluding behaviours (such as not allowing another child to join in or to even watch).
DIMENSIONS OF A PLAY PROGRAM
Some key influences on the nature and quality of any play event are: goals, personal characteristics, context, and preferred options for meeting goals, behaviour, and perception of consequences of behaviour (Nepoth 1983). These factors should also be considered when designing or evaluating a play program. Of course, no program is likely to fully address the goals or perceptions of each participant, but some serious consideration should be given to them to ensure that the program is meaningful and rewarding for all participants, to some degree or other. Let us consider how each of these factors might be addressed in a play program.
Participants’ Goals
These are the reasons for participation, from the participants’ point of view. While many programs give much thought to the goals of adult stakeholders (people with an interest in the program), such as parents, teachers, play leaders, the local community, and society in general, children’s goals are often not considered. It is often assumed that children will be motivated to play just for the sake of playing. To a degree, this may be true. However, human beings are primarily meaning-making beings, and tend to be motivated towards activities that have some meaning for them. Goals give activity meaning, and are a part of children’s play.
If you watch children at play, you will notice that play actions are almost always directed towards some goal, such as the goal of making a hole in the dirt, or climbing a particular tree, or pretending to be super-heroes. Though these goals can quickly shift and change in the course of play, they are crucial for initiating action. In fact, you will often see children directed from activity to activity with such cries as, “Let’s pretend…”, or “Now let’s make this…”, or “I’m going to make a …”. Sometimes, children whose suggestions are ignored will motivate others towards different goals by initiating action. For example, a child who has become bored with a ‘pretend’ game might begin making a road in the same for a toy tractor. Seeing another child in purposeful activity can motivate other to join in (for example, join in the road making for toy vehicles).
A play program can set goals that will motivate children to play, or it can stimulate goal creation, or both. Set goals can be broad to begin with (e.g. build something) to start with, and narrowed down as needed (e.g. if the children don’t know what to build, the leader can suggest things to build, such as a cubby house or a village). A program with set goals should include a range of resources that will allow those goals to be met without severely limiting the children’s choices (and thereby, their sense of control). For example, the leader can provide a range of loose resources, such as wood, tools, fabrics, boxes etc that the children can use to construct things, and be available to support the children’s effort where needed.
To stimulate children to create their own goals, a program should provide a variety of resources and opportunities, and allow children a degree of freedom in deciding how to use them, within certain guidelines. For example, the leader might give some suggestions, or brainstorm with the group possible uses of the resources (build a house; make robots or machines; dress up; pretend to be pirates; pretend to be astronauts and build a space ship etc.) then organise the activities around the identified goals. For instance, children can be divided into groups who then determine their group goals, what resources to use and what to do with them.
Children are naturally creative, and will often quickly set their own play goals, even with limited resources.
Sometimes, children just need a little time to check out the resources, or to get to know each other before they begin agreeing on goals, after which they can be left to pursue and change their goals as they wish. The leader’s main roles here would be to ensure that all the children are included in activities in some way, and that excluding behaviours (especially teasing, bullying or anti-social behaviours) are not permitted. Where there are significant age or gender variations (e.g. mostly boys or mostly girls, or very young children in a mostly older group), the leader will need to be pro-active in ensuring that all children are included in an activity they enjoy, perhaps by creating age groups, or mixed gender groups.
Keep in mind that children’s play goals may not be what adults expect. For instance, for pre-teens, socialising can be as important as play activities, and they often prefer to sit or walk around chatting with each other. A program can allow for this kind of unstructured activity by allowing children to socialise rather than play, or it can include time and opportunities for socialising before, after or during activities. For instance, theatre, dress-up, cooking, building and other activities can very loosely structured so that children can talk as they do things. A flexible play leader might recognise that for some children, the social goals are more important than the task goals, which serve mostly to establish a context for the socialisation. A play leader who prevents these children from meeting their social goals and insists on the task goals might be faced with a minor rebellion, and may undermine the playfulness of the proposed activities.
Ideas
Below are some suggestions for identifying and creating meaning goals:
- Work with ideas derived from group members (or potential users), moulding them into a workable program which will cater to their interests but fit the group as a whole.
- Observe the play behaviour in different situations of a range of children in the age groups you are catering for, noting the kinds of resources that are most often used, and how.
- Consult with parents, teachers and others involved with children to identify favourite kinds of play.
- Talk to children and ask what kinds of play activities they would like. Offer a range of choices, and accept all ideas without evaluating them.
- Obtain background information on your intended participants, including skill level, interests, social skills, ages, genders, cultural backgrounds. Get to know them if possible at some preliminary meetings.
- Include children in decision making where possible regarding resources and activities.
- Include a variety of activities, including some structured, some unstructured, some using the same resources in different ways, and others using different kinds of resources.
- Provide a variety of resources, and a mix of fixed and loose, large and small resources. Consider variety of texture and colour, and also consider ways that resources might be combined (e.g. using nails, strings, glue etc.) to create new things.
- Vary the distance between resources, and create different areas for different kinds of activities. This allows children who want to engage in more reflective or intimate activities, such as pretend or problem-solving, to work without being interrupted, and creates more space for boisterous or high activity play. Spacing can also reduce accidents.
- Be willing to consider participants’ suggestions when things slow down, and allow for flexibility to change the program if something isn’t working. Be careful not to expect continuous high activity, however. The normal pace of play will fluctuate as energy and motivation rise and fall. Also, children might need time to feel comfortable with an activity, and might only need a little time and support to find pleasure and stimulation in that activity.
Personal Characteristics
These include such factors as level of fitness, level of skill, areas of skill, temperament (shy, outgoing), attitude, social skills, fearfulness, ability or willingness to consider consequences and so on. Personal characteristics also include developmental characteristics, such as traits common to very young children (e.g. egocentrism, impatience, fewer fine motor skills), or typical teenager traits such as interest in the other gender or desire for acceptance).
Cultural traits and values can can and do influence behaviour and expectations.
When planning a program, consider the developmental stages of the intended participants, and provide resources and activities that they can do, and also, some that will also stimulate and challenge them. But keep in mind that you are aiming for the participants to experience ‘optimal arousal’ – to be sufficiently stimulated to motivate them to want to do the activities, but not over-stimulated.
Below are some suggestions for catering to personal characteristics:
- Take advantage of common or typical characteristics. If you have a fairly uniform group, tailor your program largely towards what that groups typically can do and enjoys doing. For instance, a group of very small children is usually happier playing on their own or in pairs, and will want to move on to different resources quite often. They may not respond well to structured play, and will quickly lose interest in something they have not chosen to do. Therefore, your program should be fairly unstructured, but contained, and allow for freedom to move around and choose different resources. Activities requiring sustained cooperation will not usually work as small children generally lack the social skills or psychological capacity for cooperation. If there are pre-teenagers in the group, provide activities that allow them to use and practice their skills and knowledge, and include cooperative activities.
- If you want to include challenging activities, consider that pre-teens need to feel a sense of competence in order to take risks. You might consider offering both challenge and development activities, where those who feel competent can challenge themselves, while those who don’t feel competent can be involved in related activities that will develop their ability to attempt harder activities later. However, challenge is only part of play if the individual gains pleasure from the challenge, and a sense of control. It is not play when a child is left feeling inferior or helpless. Therefore, your program should allow for different kinds of challenge and development experiences e.g. physical, fine motor, intellectual, aesthetic, social, imaginative etc.
- Provide a sense of security for small children. Radius of movement addresses the matter of the distance from parents or a guardian that children feel comfortable with. Children move about a space relative to the location of their centre of security and the degree to which they feel safe. If a parent or guardian is present, this person may be their centre of security. If they are not present, the gate or door to the play area (e.g. through which the parent returns), may represent the centre of security. In a broader sense, the child’s home may represent the child’s centre of security within their neighbourhood. Small children prefer to play near a responsive adult, and tend to naturally gravitate towards a sympathetic adult. Therefore, locate small children’s activities near or within easy reach of a play leader or helper.
- Radius of movement should be considered when planning where to conduct activities or locate resources, toys or facilities, whether considering a small space such as a play room, or enclosed play area, or a larger space such as a residential estate.
- Be a participant as well. Surprisingly, 7-14 year olds often prefer to play around an adult as well, possibly because they are at a stage of social development where they are defining themselves and their place in the world. Children of this age often enjoy talking to adults and discussing ideas, and respond warmly to adults who show a real interest in their ideas. They will tend to prefer activities where they interact with an adult with whom they can discuss what they are doing, or who can help them solve problems such as how to make a structure stand up, or what is inside a space capsule.
- Provide resources for more introverted or intellectual children as well as active, more physically-oriented children. Quieter, more reflective activities can include drawing, pottery, music, crafts, pretend games, construction, problem-solving activities, and paired or small group activities.
- Plan a program that enables able-bodied children and children with disabilities to play together. Provide resources (such as ramps with strong rails) that can allow children with disabilities to do physical activities if they choose.
- Focus on activities that involve cooperation rather than competition. Competition is not undesirable, and can be included in a program, but it can reduce the play aspect of activities and de-motivate some children. Competitive activities should be voluntary, and non-competitive participants should be allowed to just observe and cheer. Naturally competitive children will tend to compete anyway, and will often create their own competition out of an activity.
- Consider a variety of natural and constructed resources to cater to different preferred environments. Natural environments can create a variety of stimulating play settings as well many resources (leaves, twigs, stones, dirt, trees, water, grasses etc.) that can be used in play. They can also provide urban children with experiences that they are not usually exposed to. A natural environment can be large, such as a grassy knoll or a wooded area, or small, such as a small garden (perhaps built and tended by participants). On the other hand, research shows that children tend to use paved areas a great deal for a range of activities. Paved areas allow children to use bicycles, scooters, or boards, or to play games requiring an even surface.
- Consider differences in health, fitness, and stamina. A program for children recovering from illness will be less demanding that one for fit children. A program for children who are not normally very active should not leave them feeling clumsy, slow or incompetent. A program designed for the energy level of the typical 10 year old will be too long or exhausting for a small or an unfit child. A degree of fitness development can be included in a good program, but if you are designing a play program, you must design fitness activities that are fun, and focus on the fun aspect rather that on achievement. Keep in mind that you are more likely to discourage a child from becoming more active if they are concerned about performing, and much more likely to encourage activity if the activity is seen as intrinsically rewarding (enjoyable to do).
- Gender difference can influence children’s responses to parts of a program. Though some prefer to believe that gender differences are all due to social conditioning, research shows that there a certain genetic tendencies that are “hardwired” into our biology, including the well-known male competitiveness versus female nurturing tendency. Male and female “mental styles” are reflected in boys’ preference for mechanical toys and girls’ preference for realistic dolls, in the male tendency to order rather than negotiate as females tend to, and in different ways of orienting oneself (females tend to find landmarks whereas males tend to follow directions cues).
- Male and female mental styles manifest in the toys kids prefer (humanlike dolls versus mechanical trucks); ways of communicating (male ordering rather than female negotiating); and navigation (women personalize space by finding landmarks; men see a geometric system, taking directional cues in the layout of routes). While all children should be allowed and encouraged to play how they want, a good program will provide for these differences so that neither girls nor boys are disadvantaged. This might mean including social activities requiring negotiation and cooperation (such as theatre, dress up or cooperative games) as well as concrete or competitive activities such as building or sport. You might even play with genetic differences by including an orienteering activity that allows participants different ways of reaching a destination.
