“I didn’t play enough as a child”

“My husband, who is now 32, comes home from work every day and sits down at the computer to “shoot, run around with axes,” says 27-year-old Irina. – At first I was worried: it is strange that an adult man plays with friends on the Web. And then I thought – well, what is it, maybe a person needs to be discharged. If it doesn’t affect the relationship, I don’t care.” Not worried – yet – and Inessa, whose 14-year-old son, throwing a school backpack at the threshold, rushes to the computer. “Of course, I’m watching so as not to miss the moment when he ceases to be interested in anything other than games. But now his attention is enough for everything – both for studying, and for friends, and for computer games.

With the help of the game we solve certain problems. At each stage of growing up they are different. And if there was a failure and we did not solve something on time, then we make up for it, being far from being children. Therefore, the child must play enough up to 7 years, and do it right. What tasks do children solve at different stages of their development?

accept the rules

“It is believed that by the age of 7 a child should learn to play by the rules. It is at this age that children become schoolchildren, and school is a system of strict rules. From the moment of birth, the human psyche is constantly becoming more complex. And if at first the child tries to manipulate toys, pick up rattles, then from a year to two and a half years old he is fascinated by stereotypical games, ”says Tatyana Puyda. It is at this moment that children can “pour from empty to empty” for a long time: they play with water, pour sand or flour from one dish to another. Many parents underestimate the importance of this process. It hurts them to see that the child is wasting time senselessly. But it’s not. Children learn to play on their own, they are driven by the desire to explore the world, to occupy themselves. They care about the process, not the result.

“Seven years ago, many parents with similar problems came to see me, and this is no coincidence,” recalls Tatyana Puyda. “About 12-15 years ago, early development was fashionable, when the child was constantly occupied with something, he was not given the opportunity to play independently – the very one when he can pour water from a basin into a jug and back for hours, getting great pleasure from the process.”

“Early” children were taught almost from birth to work for the result – if you do something, then by all means for some purpose: add cubes, read words, and so on. Such children may have various difficulties in the future, ranging from constant dependence on a good assessment from the outside, ending with difficulties in developing empathy. As a result, empathy and empathy for other people are not developed, which can lead to an inability to establish relationships. Such children have encyclopedic knowledge, but their emotional sphere remains at the level of a three-year-old child – at this age the child is only beginning to become aware of his emotions and is emotionally separated from his mother.

To correct the situation, long-term psychotherapy is often required. “The child who was forced to play did not solve the problem of enjoying the process,” continues the psychotherapist. Therefore, it is important that parents keep a balance: at any age they give the child space and time for independent games, do not fill the entire daylight hours with their instructions and activity. But it’s not worth leaving a child in a solitary voyage at all, because children often copy us in the game, learning to interact with the world.

Shooters or Peppa Pig?

What are the children playing? It depends on what tasks they solve and what their leading activity is at a particular age. Up to 7 years is a game, from 7 to 11 years – study, from 12 to 17 years – communication. “If a 10-year-old or 13-year-old child is not fixated on any one game, if studies do not suffer, he continues to communicate with peers, then you can not worry,” the psychotherapist believes.

Sometimes hobbies are dictated by fashion or a trend among peers: first the whole class plays the Farm, then Fallout (a series of post-apocalyptic role-playing computer games. – Approx. ed.). Another thing is when a student “hangs” on one thing and other areas of life begin to suffer: he locks himself in four walls, skips classes, and stops taking care of himself. For parents, this is a wake-up call: a son or daughter is faced with some kind of problem that their psyche is not able to solve. And maybe it’s time to see a psychologist.

Often, parents are worried that their children are addicted to horror stories or “bloody” online games. Playing “war”, children dump aggression. No wonder they come up with horror stories, play monsters and zombies. “The child must learn to cope with fear, but this fear must be such that the psyche can digest it. If this task has not been solved, then in adulthood a person constantly “flirts” with his fear, for example, he chooses extreme sports or dashing driving,” explains Tatyana Puyda.

Sometimes during adolescence, children regress in games. “This is the most difficult period when we jump over the abyss – we are no longer children, but not yet adults. And these throwings are manifested in everything: all body systems are rebuilt, in a week a child can grow by 20 cm, and the heart still remains the same. Sometimes teenagers start secretly playing kindergarten games like Peppa Pig or Lego.” This should not frighten parents, the psychotherapist believes.

Five Signs of Play

But not everything that we call a game fits into this concept. Some gambling or sports games cannot be considered as such. The Dutch philosopher, historian and cultural researcher Johan Huizinga identified five features of the game:

• Pleasure is not from the result, but from the process (similar to what small children under 2,5 experience).
• The ability for imagination and pretend play, where children pretend to drink from a non-existent cup or shoot from an invisible machine gun.
• Clear rules.
• Freedom to enter and exit when you can opt out.
• Restriction in space and time, when the child understands that there is an entrance to the game and there is an exit from it.

Any violation of these rules means that this is not a game before us. For example, a child is involved in something that does not give pleasure, or even drives them into despair and fear, or is forbidden to leave the game. “In this case, there is violence and violation of boundaries,” the therapist warns. – In my childhood, they often said: “Time for business – hour for fun.” Then I understood this as a need to deserve rest and play, and in general fun is something not valuable, business is more important. Now it seems to me that this saying has a different meaning: in life, both are valuable. Both the matter and the game must be finite, and a transition from the first to the second and vice versa is needed.

Otherwise, these children grow up to be workaholics who do not know how to relax. Often, parents manipulate the child’s desire to play, punish them by forbidding them to play for misconduct. “The child must be sure that he has the right to pleasure, that this is just as important a part of life. And it does not depend on grades, washed dishes or good behavior. So, growing up, we learn to enjoy life and understand that the right to rest does not have to be earned by working around the clock.

Do children need to play war?

Inna Shifanova, psychologist

1. It is neither possible nor necessary to forbid boys to play war, but war games and toys should not be imposed on them.
2. The “cooler” military toys, the more they look like real weapons, the less they develop creative imagination and the more they contribute to the romanticization of war and cruelty.
3. The target of a toy gun should never be a real person. This creates a sense of superiority.
4. Rigid separation of toys for boys (gun) and for girls (dolls) creates problems in communication. The other sex is perceived evaluatively as better or worse than me.
5. The anger and superiority that a child feels when pointing a toy gun at a friend can frighten him. After all, before that, he considered himself kind.
6. If a child constantly draws war and only in black and white, this should cause alarm for educators.
7. Courage is a personality trait associated with dignity, not aggression. It is dangerous to associate the image of a real man exclusively with weapons.
8. Love for the motherland is not hymns and pathos. Like any love, it is intimate and requires silence. Patriotism cannot be aggressive. Military toys should educate the defender, not the aggressor – and this depends on the educators.
9. The history of the country does not equal the history of wars. It is important that the image of a peaceful life and peaceful activities be more attractive.