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When will my son start playing with other children? The daughter still does not know how to ask with words … is it bad? Parents are concerned about how their child develops. Let’s try to figure this out.
Tatyana Bednik, child psychotherapist, clinical psychologist, DIR/Floortime top-level specialist (ICDL certificate). For more details, see “Handbook of Psychologists”.
Studying the emotional and intellectual development of children, Stanley Greenspan, an American child psychologist, realized that it was based on communication with adults, and created a table that lists important communication skills. All children master them, although at different speeds and not necessarily strictly sequentially.
The developmental difficulties that some children experience are always associated with a lack or lack of communication skills. And if parents turn to a psychologist about this, then he, together with the child, returns to the stage where these gaps arose and helps to fill them. For example, 3-year-old Katya speaks fluently, enthusiastically plays story games (treats dolls, arranges a “shop”), but at the same time she is very worried, when her mother leaves the door, she quits the game and does not know how to calm herself down at all. The psychologist starts working with her from the first stage: encourages her when she cuddles a plush hare to feel calmer without her mother, teaches her to look for something that will give her pleasure: cover herself with a warm blanket, look through a picture book, listen to audio recordings of fairy tales.
Read more:
- Why should a child play?
Another example: the well-read, intellectually developed Misha is not able to establish close relationships with his peers for 5 years, they do not accept him in games, the child is upset and the parents are worried. The psychologist returns with him to the second stage, when the need for communication develops. He returns, that is, plays with the boy, creating game plots in which different characters have to get to know each other and perform some actions together (for example, Spider-Man and the wolf build a bridge over the river together). He asks Misha questions about these situations, helping to draw his own conclusions about how you can start dating, why you want to be friends with someone, but you don’t want to with someone. Also, noticing that Misha often frowns, the psychologist uses a mirror to show the boy how different he looks, experiencing different feelings. At the same time, he teaches parents to support their son, asks which of the acquaintances with children of the right age they could invite home. Gradually, Misha begins to smile more often and show friendliness, it becomes easier for him to enter into conversation and play with other children.
Children learn their first social skills by spending time with their parents. Therefore, it is important that parents talk to their children, play different games together, first the simplest ones, like rocking and tossing, and then more complex ones.
With the help of the table below, parents can see at what stage of development their child is and, if necessary, consult a psychologist.
Julia Gippenreiter
We continue to communicate with the child. So?
Children grow up, which means that new questions regarding their upbringing and development arise from parents almost daily. The book of a psychologist and teacher, professor of Moscow State University Yulia Borisovna Gippenreiter is a continuation of her bestseller “Communicate with a child. How? ”, which literally turned the attitude towards children in thousands of Russian families.
1 to 0 months
Self-regulation (or the ability to calm yourself down on your own) and interest in the world.
The task of the child: to be able to pay attention to the same subject as an adult. Learn from other people, interact with them, learn to keep your calm state and assimilate information from communication with others.
What parents should do: help the child “fall in love with the world.” To do this, encourage his interest in everything new with soft touches, gentle intonations, smiles, everything that gives him pleasure.
2 to 2,5 months
First contact, response to an adult’s appeal.
The task of the child: to learn to enter into relationships. In order to develop, children need to communicate with other people. At this age, they can already distinguish a close adult as a special person, react to his facial expressions, begin to distinguish between pleasure from communicating with him and interest in an inanimate object. At this age, a smile appears, which is called “social” – it is addressed to a specific person.
What to do for parents: initiate communication with the child, exchange glances, smiles, tell him about what is happening to him, play short games (for example, patties or “the horned goat is coming”).
Read more:
- Francoise Dolto: “A child is not at all what adults think of him”
3 to 4 months
Intentional and mutual communication
The task of the child: to start communication first. For example, he may smile to be smiled back at. He already knows how to show his intentions and express feelings with the help of sounds, gestures, facial expressions, bodily movements. At this stage, the child develops a sense of reality: he can already distinguish his own actions from those of others. If an adult covers his toy with his palm, the child tries to lift the adult’s palm. The feeling of “I” and “you” begins to take shape.
What parents should do: respond to the child’s initiative, listen and respond to his signals, try to “speak his language”, understand his feelings and respond to them.
4 to 10 months
Solving social problems, the beginning of self-awareness.
The task of the child: to interact with the world, to solve different problems together with adults. The child can take his mother by the hand and lead her to the closet with clothes, which means: “let’s go for a walk.” All skills that have arisen in the previous stages are combined into long chains. If he is hungry, then he can show an adult for food. Communication becomes more difficult. The child learns to control his mood, he can express his feelings before they become too strong.
What to do for parents: show the child that his desires and experiences are understood; be patient if it is not immediately clear what the child wants.
Read more:
- 10 things my child should learn by age 10
5 to 18 months
Formation of symbols, use of words and concepts.
The task of the child is to use words meaningfully. He used to hug his mother, now he can say “I love you!”, he can say “I don’t want to!” instead of crying. The child plays games in which real or imagined scenes are reproduced, such as tea drinking or monster attacks.
What parents should do: talk to the child, name his feelings; respect his work; encourage the child to play by setting aside a special place and time for it.
6 to 30 months
Emotional thinking, logic and a sense of reality.
The task of the child: to establish logical connections between meaningful concepts, to understand their own emotions and the experiences of other people. At this age, the concepts of time and cause-and-effect relationships appear. Children can not only express their desires, but also explain them. They master games with rules and invent new games.
What parents should do: carefully communicate with the child, not overloading him with information and at the same time making sure that he receives it in the form and in the amount that is useful to him. An important indicator is a lively interest: if it disappears, it’s time to give the child a rest, switch to another activity.
The child goes through these stages of development by the age of five, they become the basis for subsequent, more complex stages of emotional and intellectual development.