benefits of infant-parent play (escalona, s, 1968)
finding: even if the infants in a control group were given a variety of toys to play with, the sensorimotor play of babies playing alone was less complex and sustained than of babies who had an adult to interact with.
when infant and toddler play is facilitated and encouraged by a caregiver's structuring role and that the play results is more sophisticated than would be found in children in limited access to adult play partners.
mother/caregiver's role to play:
to adapt play activities in response to what the child was doing. e.g. varying rate at which they offered new play materials, introduce variations and inrease the intensity of play whtn child seemed to be losing interest, reduce level of activity when child becomes overly excited, offer reassurance when babies were having a difficult time, reinforce them when they did something well.
benefits:
-increased length of attention spans
- keeps infant at optimal level of arousal,neither bored nor overly excited
- gives infant a feeling of control over its environment, fostering confidence and promoting intellectual growth.
- exposes infant to intense social interaction with its parents and so facilitates process of parent-infant attachment
- encouraged infant to explore its surroundings (have chatted with karen and dimple about this before if you realise while exploring you are like a secure base, your baby will look for you and assure itself that you're there then continue exploring object/environment)
- causes infant to attend more closely to social aspects of language
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i was thinking leh mint, on the infant curriculum. i've not planned for infants before and i suppose i could because i have books to reference and an actual bb to experiment on but i cannot do so either. because i'm not your bb's teacher.. right now, you are. i don't know what motivates regina, havent spent enough time with her to read her social gestures. plus, while our babies are def interested in each other, babies might be content to just touch each other (i suspect they're objects to each other) so not much meaningful interaction yet. from what i read, more meaningful interactions might take place from 10 mths onwards and more predominantly 15-20 mths where babies start recognising their peers as potential play partners other than their caregivers/ other adults.
i know this is lengthy, but i hope it helps. i'm reading for myself and abby anyway. strange thing is that i've read my texts prob hundreds of times but this period of time might be the only time i'm reading it because i'm genuinely interested. ehhehehehe the rest of the times, just using the content for references in my work.