Teaching Kids to Play: Solitary Play

 

Solitary play is when a child is engaged in an independent activity, showing no interest in joining or interacting with other children. For example, a child is in a room of children, sitting alone and stacking blocks.

"Babies usually like to spend much of their time playing on their own. They are exploring all aspects of their environment from the sound of their own voice and the feel of their own body parts to those of others. They want to gaze upon, grab, suck and rattle any object that comes their way.

Older children at times will also prefer to play on their own. They may spend hours making up stories with their GI Joes or Barbie Dolls. They like to build, draw, paint, invent and explore by themselves. They hopefully will also like to read and even write on their own."

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/play-work-of-children/pl3

We generally think of the solitary play stage as something infants/young children engage in, but there are important skills learned in this stage that older children and even adults need in order to function in a school, work, and social environment. As children get older they are expected to complete more activities independently or to play quietly by themselves while an adult is working on something or while waiting for an appointment. The older a child gets the longer the period of time they are expected to focus and work independently.  If your child missed this important stage of play or is struggling with some of the skills learned in this area, it will be extremely important to go back and teach them how to do solitary play.

Benefits of Solitary Play:
One of the benefits of solitary play is that it leads to more self-confidence for your child. The child is able to have control over something and be successful. Children will also learn to focus on an activity, occupy themselves and use their imagination to keep themselves interested.  Their ability to work independently will be increased as well as their skills in the area of thought process.

Evaluating Solitary Play Skills:
When evaluating whether your child has mastered solitary play you will want to look at how long will child play with a given toy independently before reverting to Unoccupied play or getting bored and moving on.  Does your child get easily frustrated wit cause and effect, problem solving, or decision making tasks/activities/toys and what is there response to frustration?  Do they move on, have increased anxiety, become aggressive, immediately request assistance or persevere till they are able to accomplish the goal?

Goals for Solitary Play:
Once you know where your child is at with Solitary Play you can determine appropriate goals for your child, such as:
Increase focus and attention to one toy/task
Increase Independence at play
Increase Exploration of environment
Increased skills in the thought process – problem-solving, remembering, focus, and decision-making.
Increased Imagination Skills-  if this is an area your child struggles with they will need direct instruction with an adult before able to successfully master this during Solitary Play (This will be addressed in Teaching Kids To Play: Pretend/Imaginative Play)

Toy Ideas:
Cause and Effect Toys
Montessori Toys
Stacking Toys
High Interest Toys for your child


TEACHING/PRACTICING SOLITARY PLAY:

In order to teach solitary play you will want to set up an area that your child is to stay in, pick a toy they may be interested in (Cause and Effect Toys, Montessori Toys work well).  I try and pick an area that is relatively free from other distractions.

To increase ability to focus on toy or independence while playing:  Once you have a baseline (average length of time child can concentrate on toy) you will want to try and increase it by increments that your child will be successful at, this could mean 10 seconds longer, it could mean 2 minutes longer.  You want your child to be successful at the increase a few times before pushing them to go longer.  For us, our goal is to engage in solitary play for 15 minutes, we currently are at about 10 minutes.  I set a timer for 12 minutes and explain that child can have a treat if they can play with this toy in this spot for 12 minutes alone.  We set some rules:  You have to stay on carpet, you can only play with this toy, you can talk to yourself or imaginary friends but no one else unless you have an emergency (review situations that constitute an emergency).  For some children you may need to provide a reinforcer (treat, song, etc.) every time they look at the toy and increase from there.  Wherever your child is at is fine, start there. 

To increase exploration of environment:  If your goal is to get your child to explore the environment around them, setting up an I Spy type game is a great way to do this.  Books such as Where's Waldo and I Spy encourage this during solitary play.  Another idea is to give your child a list of things to find on his own in the house, a scavenger hunt.  If they have trouble with this start small and help them at first trying to fade out for longer and longer periods till they are able to do it on their own.

To increase skills in thought-process, problem solving skills:  This is an area where some of the Montessori toys are really great for working with during solitary play.  Don't be afraid to start out with some basic toys designed for younger kids; things like stacking toys.  We have this Snowman Stacking Toy from Melissa and Doug, its great because it doesn't seem like a "baby" toy!  They have lots of other similar toys and puzzles that would be great.  Anything that will require your child to use some thinking to do can work in this area!

Teaching Kids to Play: Unoccupied Play

Unoccupied Play is not seen much past the infancy stage in typical developing children.  The child is uninterested in toys or exploring their surrounding.  They tend to stay in one place and make seemingly random gestures or movements. For an infant or young child these gestures and movements are an attempt to interact with and learn about the environment.  Older children who may be stuck in the Unoccupied Play stage are sometimes referred to as "stimming", relatively common for kids with autism, neurological or developmental disabilities.  Children who have suffered trauma and as a result have PTSD or have other mental health issues may appear to be in Unoccupied Play when they dissociate from reality.

It can be difficult to interact with children who are engaging in unoccupied play or stimming/dissociative behaviors.  If your child is engaging in unoccupied play behaviors after the infancy stage you will first want to figure out the underlying reason.  Many children use these behaviors to manage anxiety, fear, anger, and other negative emotions or help themselves handle overwhelming sensory input (too much noise, light, heat, etc).   If you can identify the cause of the unoccupied play behavior it will be easier to choose what strategies to try and keep them actively engaged in play.

Here are some things you can try to move past unoccupied play behaviors:

Play music in background

Provide environment with different colors and patterns

Provide toys with different textures

Singing Songs

Use sing-song voice when talking to child

Use expressive and excited voice tones

Provide positive reinforcement for interacting with toys/others

Provide positive reinforcement for making eye contact

Begin teaching the specific skills needed for Solitary Play
Re-direct child to toy

If you have difficulty getting your child out of the Unoccupied Play stage you may need additional assistance from OT (Occupational Therapist) or ABA (Applied Behavior Analyst).

Teaching Kids to Play: Stages of Play Overview

One of the first things I noticed when my boys first came to me was the lack of ability to "play".  They didn't know what to do with toys other than crash them into each other or bang and throw them. They obsessed with bad guys and beating bad guys, but not in an imaginative cops and robbers way, just a focus on hitting toys against each other. They were not able to follow rules, share or wait their turn.   There was no imagination, making up scenarios and stories and cooperatively playing with other peers did not come naturally.  If I had a chance to do that first year over again I would have focused on direct instruction of play.   They didn't pick up on these play skills naturally and never caught up, as I thought they would, by watching and imitating peers play.  We had bigger fish to fry at the time, or so I thought, and it wasn't something I thought I could really deal with then on top of everything else, nor did I realize the importance of play skills in other development areas.  The thing is,  now that I've spent a lot of time looking into teaching kids to play, it is not something that would be difficult to incorporate into your daily routine!  Hopefully this series will help you identify the play skills your child may have missed or be having difficulty with and give you some great ideas to help them succeed in play!



 

STAGES OF PLAY

 

In 1932, Mildred Parten categorized the stages of play for children that we still use today. Those stages are Onlooker, Solitary, Parallel, Associative, and Cooperative Play. We will be looking at each of these stages over the next few weeks in more detail, but read through the brief descriptions and began looking for where your child might fit in, what stage are they at?  You may find that your child completely skipped one of the stages in their development or never mastered a particular skill within an area of play.

 

Unoccupied: In this stage a child may observe others playing, but not join in. They may make seemingly random movements or gestures.  For example, an infant may look around a room and reach out their hand, but not engage in play.

 

Solitary:  Solitary play is when a child is engaged in an independent activity, showing no interest in joining or interacting with other children. For example, a child is in a room of children, sitting alone and stacking blocks.

 

Onlooker: During onlooker behavior a child may watch others play but not join in, differing from unoccupied play in that the children may engage in forms of social interaction like having a conversation with the children playing.  For example, a child walks up to a group playing with legos and talks with them about what they are building but does not join in and play with the legos.

 

Parallel: In parallel play, children may play next to each other, possibly even with similar toys.  They may interact but the focus is on their own individual play.  For example, two children may be sitting next to each other driving trucks.  They may even comment to the other child what they are doing, "My truck is digging a hole."

 

Associative: This stage involves children sharing and interacting with each other, but they utilize separate storylines and themes.  For example, children may be coloring next to each other and sharing crayons, but create individual artwork and tell different stories about their picture. The interactions are more reciprocal than in parallel play, with the conversation going back and forth and the child asking questions or commenting on the other child's play.

 

Cooperative:  This stage of play is highly complex, as it combines skills learned from previous stages in order for children to participate in organized, goal oriented play.  This stage involves children sharing materials, working together to develop and assign roles and storylines to coordinate and play together.  For example, children may gather together pretend food and carts, set up a grocery store and check out area, assign roles of shopper and cashier and carry out a storyline of purchasing food and checking out.

 

 

 

List of Topics in "Teach Kids to Play" Series:
(As each topic is covered I will link up to it here)
 

 

Unoccupied Play

Solitary Play

Onlooker Play

Parallel Play

Associative Play

Cooperative Play

How to set up a Direct Instruction Play Session
Joint Attention
Communication
Resources
What is "Play Therapy" and how is this different?

 

 

 





Skittles Game

 

 

The M&M games were a big hit with James and Joel yesterday, as well as with the Mobile Therapist!  I decided to create a few more games to have on hand, these ones use skittles.  Free printables for these games can be found here, which links you to google docs.

 

 

 This game board connects with our "Calm Down Corner" and relaxation exercises we have been practicing.  There is another game board for emotions located in the packet as well!

 

The basic directions of the game: Each person will receive a fun size bag of skittles. They will pull out a skittle and move their piece to the next space of that color.  They will then do the activity listed for that color and eat the skittle.  Whoever gets to the finish first wins!

 

 

Be sure to check out the M&M game!

 

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas and activities click the Pinterest button on the right side of the blog :)

M&Ms Feelings Activity

My kids LOVE m&m's, they may or may not be used frequently as a bribe in our household.
I found this idea on Pinterest and it's been sitting around on one of my "Boards" forever!!  I've modified he original game a bit to fit my families particular needs and I think it turned out great!  We will be doing the activity on Monday when James' Mobile Therapist is out, so Ill let you know how it goes.

I've made two versions of the M&M game, the first one focuses on feelings and the second focuses on feeling Angry and calming down.  You will need to print out a game board, you could either print one for the whole family to share or print mini boards so each person has their own.  I laminated mine so we can use them again without getting them ruined.  Each person will need a fun size bag of M&M's or an assortment of 10 or so M&M's.  You can go around in a circle each taking a turn, pulling out a M&M and doing what the game board says.
 

 Here is a link to my post about our Calm Down Corner and strategies:  Calm Down Corner

Here are both games to download from google docs.  They are full page size, I just set my printer to print multiple pages to make them half or quarter page sized.

If you want to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas, click the link on the right hand side of my blog!

Be sure to join us on Art Therapy Thursdays, for great arts and crafts ideas to use with special kiddos:

 

Gingerbread Man Feelings

THE GINGERBREAD MAN:  FEELINGS ACTIVITY 

I saw a Youtube video that had something similar to this, but we adapted it to discuss how Matthew's big "mad" feeling covers up the true feelings he may be having and how its had to determine what the true feelings are when we let the big feelings take over.

1. I started by taking a piece of brown construction paper and drawing two gingerbread man shapes on it for Matthew to cut out.

2.  Once we had the gingerbread man cut out, I asked Matthew to tell me some feelings.  He told me happy, sad, and mad.  Later on in the activity he also brought up worried.  He seems to be able to identify feelings when asked but still has a difficult time identifying anything other than mad in real life situations.

3.  I told him I wanted to start with sad and asked him what color he thought sad was, he picked blue.  I asked him where in his body he felt it when he was sad.  He immediately said his legs.  I asked him what happened to his legs when he felt sad and he told me they felt tired.  WOW!!  I never even thought about that but so true!  I told him I felt sad in my heart, so we drew sad on our gingerbread man.

 4.  We did the same thing with happy and scared.  You could add other emotions in but we are still working on the basics!

 5.  When we got to mad I told him that when I feel mad it makes my whole body mad.  I had him show me what it looks lie to be mad (he is a pro at this :) ).  We talked about how often times that mad feeling covers up the real feeling we are having underneath and it is so hard to figure out the real feeling if we let the mad cover it up.  Then we drew mad covering everything up.

 6.  We talked about things we can do when we feel mad, such as breathing, taking time in our room, reading a book, doing a puzzle, etc.

 7.  Then we turned the gingerbread over and decorated the other sides however we wanted to and hung them on the tree!

I also love Christine Moers video on Feelings for our kiddos!