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Mothers' behavior during playtime linked to young children's engagement with them, researcher says

"Researchers long have evaluated the roles parents play in children's development. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that mothers' directiveness, the extent to which they try to control the content and pace of young children's play, varies based on the children's ages and the mothers' ethnicities. In addition, the study found that the more directive the mothers were during play, the less engaged children were with them and the more negative emotion the children displayed toward their mothers...."

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-mothers-behavior-playtime-linked-young.html

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Thanks for the link to this report, I'll include it in some way on my organization's (Family and Home Network) in-development resource page on play. I think all the emphasis on the importance of early learning contributes to creating fear in mothers, and making them think they need to be "teaching" their babies, which as this research shows, is counterproductive.

In my workshops with parents, some have asked "how do I play with my child?" I've found some information, including these: 

from Zero to Three website:

http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/play/tips-and-tools-play.html

And a few ideas from Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan in his materials on DIR/Floortime and healthy development:

http://www.icdl.com/dirFloortime/HealthyDevelopment/index.shtml

And I'd love to see anything else anyone has that might give parents ideas about HOW to play. Sad to see that play is so lacking in our culture. I have resources on the importance of play, theory, research, etc. - what many parents need is specific ideas. One of the results of parents and children being so isolated in our culture is that they have little opportunity to observe others at play.

Here's what I'd do if I could: hire videographers to capture moments of play between parents and children, then share these on a website. Even better than written ideas about how to play would be videos of play!

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