Play behavior of babies and toddlers - an overview

Children playing games - which for us adults often seems to drift aimlessly into the here and now, is vital for children. In the game children imitate what they saw with their parents. Like all other childlike steps in life, childish play behavior develops with age.

Especially playing with other children is crucial for the development of positive social skills. The foundation for children being able to play together harmoniously later on is laid in the first weeks of life. Parents play a key role in engaging with the child from the beginning, stimulating their response and giving them opportunities to try it for themselves. These can be petting and tickling games that make even the little ones giggle. Struggling without diaper helps the infant to find a good body awareness.

Parents - the favorite play partner for toddlers

Infants under the age of three prefer to play with their parents or other adults, or with much older children. The interest in peers is already in children from about six months, but playing together does not take place at this age yet. When it comes to an interaction, it is usually a give and take game as a sign of contact. This behavior occurs when children are about 10 to 12 months old. From this age, children who like each other start to play side by side. The children are true, they may watch each other playing, but they still do not get the idea to play together.

Developmental steps in playing behavior in the first year of life

When a baby is born, it has little control over his body. It can scream and suck and wave more or less uncoordinated with the limbs. Little by little, it develops playfully more and more skills through trial and error, accidental discovery and interaction with parents or other adults.

First to third month of life

Here, children play little, but they soon respond to adult game invitations, enjoy them and laugh about them. These first games are still mainly based on the parents: they sing, make strange noises, tickle and caress the child. If it is too much for the child, it starts to cry or becomes restless.

Fourth to sixth month of life

The children develop more and more skills, they start to grab things, they can shake rattles and they like to deal with their hands and feet. Now they also find out that they can make their parents laugh with sounds or gestures - they interact.

Seventh to ninth month of life

The children become more independent and flexible and have more and more opportunities to play with things. That's what they do enough to explore the world: how do parents react when they throw the rattle out of the stroller for the 30th time, what can you do with food and how can you handle the buttons on a telephone or stereo? Children from 9 months love the cuckoo-da game and train their memory. They explore the cause and effect principle in the game.

Tenth to twelfth month of life

The child discovers his environment more and more and "records" everything that he can achieve. He starts showing things to his parents and likes to show something. It begins to interest in song and finger games.

Playing with other children

Even though children usually start playing with other children at around the age of three, there are early forms that occur among infants in nurseries and kindergartens. Give and take and of course take away are early forms of the game, the intervals in which this takes place are short. Afterwards, the children return to their own occupations or make contact with adults.

The older the children become, the more the play with other children comes to the fore. This succeeds the better, the more social skills they have acquired in the time before. This is also necessary to enter playgroups that already exist. Usually, the contact always takes place in a similar way: After the newly added child has watched the game of the group for a while, it starts to imitate what the group is doing - it just plays along. If it brings in a good idea that the other children go into, then the child is integrated into the group.

From the age of three, role-playing games are an integral part of the child's game. They mimic everyday life with other situations. In kindergarten, this kind of game is increasing more and more. While smaller children love to play with only one partner, the desire for and the ability to play group games increases until the age of seven more and more.

Children play to learn. Projections have shown that children under the age of six must play around 15,000 hours to learn everything that was important until then. This equates to 7 to 8 hours of play per day. So give your child time and inspiration to play and help him discover the world.