Did you know that there is a scholarly journal called "American Journal of Play"?  It is an interdisciplinary quarterly, with contributions from researchers and universities across the country.  It was once thought that the ability to play and imagine was one of the characteristics that separated humans from the rest of the animal realm, but research has revealed that rats laugh, and that social play is a strong motivator for a variety of animals to accomplish tasks - as strong as food, drugs or sex. 

The most recent issue was devoted to the science of play and the relationship of play to brain chemistry and formation. Here are a few gleanings from that issue.  I am giving you "snapshots", since each article is detailed, but the snapshots may interest you and help you value the play of your children even more..

Optimal brain development depends on healthy play experiences in early life.  Over the long evolutionary haul, play has promoted social bonds and nourished social learning (think of groups of primates who depend on each other, and who bond partly through play).  Since many species, including ours, have more play experiences in the juvenile years, there is a theory that those play experiences enhance performance in adulthood by dampening the fear of novel situations.  Play introduces novel situations and is flexible and open, promoting resiliency and adaptability.

The regions of the brain where positive emotions and motivation originate (the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and frontal cortex) also mediate social play.  Our brains tell us that play is a pleasure to be sought, and our brain pathways make it so.   It seems to me that there is strong support here for trusting a child to seek the kind of play that is most compelling and interesting. We are such complex organisms, and our developing brains, linked deeply to our bodies, thoughts and emotions, have a way of knowing what kinds of experiences we need. 

Mid-summer is a good time to remember that children need unstructured time with open-ended materials, with and without other children.  They can practice reacting to novelty, constructing an imaginary world, trial and error, and new skills in play, where they are highly motivated for the pleasures that play affords.  While very young children change their mode of play with great frequency, older children can sustain a play idea over days (did you ever build a fort and form a club?).   Sometimes parents have to wait it out through the "I don't have anything to do" stage - but if you can wait it out, you might find your child, who is deeply motivated to play, discovering a new way of playing that comes from his or her own imagination and skill. 

And while you're at it, what would you like to play this summer?  Play opens us up as adults too, and our brain chemistry reacts very favorably!  Wishing you a playful time, at home or on vacation.

One of the most helpful things for parents to know, as they accompany their children through development, is how some behaviors are stepping stones.  They are stages that come before, and are necessary to, a later goal.  If we don't understand the purpose of these stepping stone stages, we might spend energy and negative emotion on squelching them, when we only need to understand and manage them.  I'll give a small example and a bigger one.

Around 2 or 2 and 1/2 years old, children see many things as either/or.  There are two possibilities, in opposition.  They DO and they DON'T want juice.  They WILL or they WON'T try the pool.  They love you or they hate you.  Someone is their friend or their enemy.  Here is a scenario I witnessed:  A 2 year old boy plays with a new set of vehicles at the library.  He is one of those children who knows the names of vehicles.  He calls one vehicle a cherry-picker, placing a toy figure in it and putting it up to fix things.  Later, another child comes to the table and calls it a fire engine.  The first child mutters "It is NOT a fire engine, it is a cherry-picker".  This child likes to say what things are and what they are NOT.  He likes telling you what he did, and what he did NOT do. Before long, he will know that some people call it one thing, and some another. He won't need to say so clearly what IS and IS NOT.  But he can't grow into an understanding of nuance and difference unless he walks through the stage of YES and NO.  It's the first, basic differentiation.  Parents don't need to do anything but understand it, help him through it when it gets in his way, work around it if necessary, and wait for it to mature into a wider sense of possibilities.

Another example, harder for parents,  is that hoarding and claiming need to come before giving and sharing.    We want our children to be willing to share toys when they are playing and to respond to another person's longing, within reason.  But before they can give something, they have to solidify the notion that it is theirs to give.  They do this by claiming. It goes hand-in-hand with their budding sense of being an autonomous person.  Just as they are saying ME they are also saying MINE.  They are naming that there are things and people that belong to them, as part of understanding that they themselves are separate beings.  Until that sense of being autonomous, and having a claim on things, is established, giving up a possession feels like coming apart as a person.  Paradoxically, when you support a child's right to claim something, they move more quickly to being able to let go of it.  Once they feel that their stake in things is honored, they can experience the pleasure of giving.

Many times I have watched children in the Preschool who turn down requests from other children to see a toy that they have brought from home.  When teachers honor the child's right to decide about her own toy, and tell her she doesn't have to share it (while she may have to share school toys), she can relax into the sense of ownership. And before long, she is letting other children use her toy.  Some children take longer than others to move through the claiming stage, and some do it more intensely.  Either way, it is a stepping stone on the path toward a generous spirit. You can't give what you don't know as yours. 

It's still hard for parents, when a child is at the pool or in a play group and is strongly claiming something that other children want.  I'll write more next time about how to manage this stage, because while we are understanding it as a phase, children still need help as they move through it.  But I hope it helps to know that it serves a developmental purpose!

As the school year draws to a close, there are  families feeling the pressure to make a decision about whether or not a young 5 year old is ready to go to kindergarten.  There are good reasons to give a child who is not ready some extra time before beginning the long school years.  School districts have to pick a date (social workers call it the "iron law of specificity") - if you're born on that date, you're ready for school and if you're born one day later, you're not.  School districts don't have the advantage of knowing individual children.

If you think of academics and school life as the seat of a three-legged stool, then a child needs to have all three legs of that stool steady and strong underneath to support learning.  The three legs are social readiness, emotional readiness, and self-management and awareness.  Short definitions of each of these would be:

Social readiness - able to play cooperatively with a lively exchange of ideas, with lots of "Let's say you're the teacher.." or "Let's pretend this is our boat.."   Given personality differences, a basic ability to enter a social situation without a great deal of fear and anxiety.   Interest in the ways that families are alike and different.

Emotional readiness - able to separate easily from parents and trust that other adults can help.  Able to understand relative need in a class of 20-30 children with one teacher.  Able to hold one's own, to tell someone to stop hurtful behavior, to articulate one's own feelings in an age-appropriate way.

Self-awareness and management - understanding of oneself as a knower, indicated by saying things like "I didn't know that!", or articulating questions.  Keeping track of one's belongings, understanding school culture and one's place in it.  Knowing that there is a topic being discussed and having relevant thoughts to share.

So with all that in mind, here's my analogy.  When you are driving on a normal day, driving doesn't demand a lot of attention from you - you can listen to the radio, talk to children in the back seat, notice something along the side of the road. You are relaxed and in control with no need to be hyper-vigilant.  But if it starts to sleet and the roads get icy, you find yourself asking the children to be quiet, turning off the radio, gripping the wheel, and concentrating hard.  Your level of tension goes up and you are very vigilant about your surroundings.

It's the same with readiness to be at school.  You don't want a child to spend their school years figuratively gripping the wheel, feeling vigilant all the time because they don't have the relaxed, easy confidence in themselves to meet all the new challenges that the school years bring.  Readiness begins in kindergarten but continues throughout the next 12 years and beyond.  Will your third grader be ready to meet the increased academic challenges if he or she feels uneasy socially?  Will your seventh grader be ready to stand his or her ground in the face of peer pressure? Will your tenth grader be solid enough to follow an individual path?

I think there are wrong reasons to give a child extra time, like hoping they'll be bigger for sports.  And I think there are very good reasons for giving a child extra time, time that loosens the grip on the steering wheel and has the child walking up the sidewalk to school with an easy gait and happy expectancy.

This final stage of moral development is one that we hope human beings reach by young adulthood.   Those who are treated abusively or with deep disrespect, those who suffer deprivation of basic human needs, those who can never develop a grounded sense of security may never be able to go beyond stage 2 or 3 (see previous entries for the previous stages).

In Stage 4, teen-agers were able to develop an appreciation of the ways that systems  maintain values and social networks, and felt a need to do their part to uphold and respect the system.  As adults move into Stage 5, they realize that even a system can be flawed, and that there is an individual obligation of conscience to act in accordance with the principle of respect for all human beings.  Systems worth supporting are systems that also protect human rights.  There is a personal acceptance of one's own responsibility to show the greatest possible respect for the rights and dignity of individuals.  There is an understanding that there is something even more basic than law, and on which laws are based.

Stage 5 allows for questioning.   A person fully in stage 5 is able to take a long view of circumstances and ask questions like "Could something here be better?  Is justice being done?  Am I respecting the rights of others?" 

Some social scientists believe that only a small percentage of adults fully live in Stage 5.  Would you remove your child from a team where the coach was mistreating some of the children, or think it was more important to stick with the team?  How do you talk yourself through a dilemma in which your own well-being or desire is in conflict with another person's?  Do you find teachable moments to share your views with older children and teens about justice issues? 

One of the reasons I wanted to spend some blog time on this topic was to put how young children understand right and wrong in perspective.  I always think that it helps our parenting if we know what children are and aren't capable of at each developmental stage.  When we ask more of them than they can do, they disappoint themselves and us.  For example, a high school youth, who lies about where she went, does understand that there is a system of values, and that she has failed in her responsibility to that system.  But a 6 year old who lies is working on his goal, which is to stay out of trouble.  The focus of parenting for the early stages needs to be on observable behaviors and following through, as well as respecting and acknowledging feelings and giving affection and love.

There is nothing that will help a child find the way to Stage 5 as well as parents who model it.  As children reach middle and high school age, you can share your own thinking with them about how you make moral choices.  You can set clear structures and have predictable, steady consequences all through their growing years, coupled with increasing independence as they demonstrate their ability to handle it.  And you can always acknowledge their feelings, and appreciate the times that they are able to separate feelings from action.  For example, you might say "You were so mad at your sister you wanted to hit her, but I saw you stop yourself and hit the blocks instead."

I would be very interested in any feedback you have about this series on moral development; please leave a comment, with examples from your own family or your thoughts.

Are you surprised at how long it's taking for human beings to develop a sense of morality that goes beyond themselves and the boundaries of their known world? (See the last 3 entries for context.)  I think this is one of the most helpful things to know about children and teens - that the solid moral stance of adulthood takes so long to develop, and goes through such distinct phases.   The moral development theorists acknowledge that some people never go beyond Stage 2 or 3.  We are about to move on, in Stage 4, to an understanding that is bigger than personal self-interest, and some people never get there.

In Stage 4, which begins in the high school years, there is a sense of responsibility to the system.  This can be a social system like a family - or church group or school.  It implies not only the social system itself but the values system that underlies it.  This is why it's important not to assume that your high school child knows what your values are by now.  This is the most important time to be talking about them, when a child is ready to understand that there is a system of values.

In this stage, what's right is fulfilling one's responsibilities to the social or values system that one feels part of.  The reason to do that is to keep the system intact, and to maintain self-respect as someone who meets obligations and lives up to expectations.  This is growth from Stage 3, because it is more independent and has a society-wide perspective.  It brings from Stage 3 the sense of caring about people personally, but takes a bigger view.  Teens begin to understand that there is a bigger world out there, one in which they will be finding their place and contributing.  They are learning to be citizens of a wider community.  This is why teens can be so committed to service projects, as a way of living out this new reality.

A person in Stage 4 can choose responsible behavior because the thinking is "What if everybody did as they pleased, took what they wanted?  The whole system would collapse."  Stage 4 is law-abiding, and its drawback is that it will usually value the system, the "law", over individual rights.  When a person in Stage 4 sees a conflict between the system and individual rights, it usually chooses the side of the system.  It will be in the next and final stage that full realization of systems as human constructs, that can be changed when individual rights are violated, will develop.

Teen-agers, who are developing abstract reasoning along with this expanded moral sense, are eager to discuss their ideas of right and wrong, and wrestle with imaginary scenarios that require hard decisions.  Keep talking to them, and asking them what they think.  It's through thinking and imagining that they will fine-tune their understanding.  Make sure they have chances to serve some part of their society - through school, church or family.  Let them experience the satisfaction of contributing their unique gifts to the world.