In the first two years, humans grow faster and learn more than at any other time during their lives. However, there is little written about spontaneous play and development in this age group, even from the point of view of those who believe in a liberated childhood. Maybe it’s because it is easy to assume that, given reasonable parenting, including diet, stimulating experiences and adult, peer or sibling modelling of reasonable behaviours, most children “just develop” along recognised paths. One could almost say that the very earliest development is as inevitable as that of a dragonfly or bee but with quite wide variations between individuals. These variations in timing are fascinating and loving carers analyse endlessly when in each other’s company. It is possible to make generalisations and say that, by the age of seven months, nearly all children will be holding their heads up well and that by the age of a year they will be putting one object down deliberately to reach for another and receiving a great deal of pleasure from that experience.
In assessing the progress of very young children who appear to have special needs, the nature of the child’s play is routinely studied by educationalists, special needs teachers, psychologists, paediatricians, physio-, occupational and speech therapists and health visitors as evidence of developmental problems or progress.
However, this sort of examination of an individual baby’s development is rare and can be viewed either as evidence of a caring society attempting to do its best for a child with deep difficulty or as a group of interfering professional exercising their power and trying to take away from a parent, who perhaps does not fit a cultural, class and/or professionally defined norm, their right to parent as they wish. There is evidence to support both views; where the child has obvious congenital difficulties, for example no legs, small skull or Down’s Syndrome, the former probably applied. Where the problems are less well defined, for example atypical behaviour patterns, the professionals may tend to turn on the parents as causing the problem.
The focus of spontaneous play is a fairly modern phenomenon. Mary Sheridan writing in 1977 in her pioneering book on Spontaneous Play in Early Childhood discovered that at that time medical literature was silent on the topic and also that little research had been conducted by psychologists into spontaneous play. Most research had been into the effects of structured situations on smaIl groups of children.
As she points out:
“There is open considerable difference between the abilities that the child registers under laboratory conditions and those more spontaneously demonstrated in more homely circumstances.”
This simple truth seems to have escaped many researchers who have been looking into what might be described as work for an adult reward rather than play; they had set both the task and the reward.
Even now, decisions that may radically affect a baby’s future in terms of medication, care and educational treatment may be mainly based on viewing a child’s performance during a three-day assessment in a paediatric clinic. It has only just started to dawn on some paediatricians and clinical psychologists that what they see in those situations has only a loose link with what may be observed at home with parent(B), other kids, the cat, the video, and something interesting that dropped off a TV snack, enriching the environment for play. Parents often say, ‘She can do it at home all right!” only to be met by the raised eyebrows of professional incredulity.
Mary Sheridan sees the purposes of play in the very young aa being necessary for the development of continual purposeful activity for the body, for the mind to become curious, and to satisfy the need to establish relationships with other people. Play is seen aa developing an apprenticeship for independent living; as a research by the child observing, exploring, speculating and discovering; as an occupational therapy, relieving the child from pain, boredom and stress; and for simple pleasure and fun.
It is at this point that arguments might begin. Babies do not have the same opportunity to control their choices, although from a very early age they will start to demonstrate their likes and dislikes. They will probably start with expressions of hunger, thirst and discomfiture, such as with a dirty nappy. It is not long before most children can start to try to control playthings (by grasping or chucking them), playspace (by curling up in a supermarket shopping box or wandering off into a large space for a run), playtime (by deciding to play a noisy game for an hour or two in the morning) end playfellows (by refusing to let go of a person or situation when that person has needs of their own to satisfy).
The tensions revolve around the child’s freewill and desires, the need for safety (child finds interesting Stanley knife in the middle of road ...) the human rights of the parent or other carer.
It is further complicated by the difficulties in communication between the baby and the adult. A child may desire a toy, a change or a drink and become frustrated and scream because the adult has not recognised what they really want. Parents from different cultural and ideological backgrounds will interpret the screams in the light of their own prejudices, background and experience. They will offer toys and opportunities that coincide with their ideas in a consistent way, so that from an early age the child will come to regard these as the norm.
I have seen many parents with libertarian/left views trying to cope with these tensions. There are no answers as to the correct way to provide a stimulating and playful environment for the very small child that embodies all the most desirable features. Parenting is an impossible job and our sexist culture tends, especially since Freud, to blame the mother for anything that appears to go wrong. Even when we offer non-militaristic toys exclusively as playthings there can be no guarantee that a lover of peace will result. However, parents should be true to themselves and offer a good environment for play, plentiful playthings and playfellows and plenty of adult interaction, but at the same time protecting some space so that they may lead fulfilling lives.