Five Ways to Explore
Author: Kyle D. Pruett, M.D.
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Simple toys and games offer a wealth of learning for your growing toddler. Enrich your child's predisposition to explore feelings about the world through play with a variety of activities.
1. Physical Play
Assuming your 18-month-old is a steady walker, give your child access to climbing toys and swings. Stairs are perfect and irresistible, but only with supervision. Also try:
- Wading pools (supervised 100 percent of the time).
- Push-pull toys and doll carriages - great for strength and balance.
- Large trucks or vehicles for scooting on or in - to build body confidence.
I concur in the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics against walkers. These toys cause 25,000 injuries annually and are way too dangerous. No electrical conveyances, either. These are also dangerous and teach nothing.
2. Small-Muscle Development
A sturdy chair at the sink or a pan of water evokes extended exploration with sinking, floating, melting, and dissolving, especially when you add ice cubes, watercolors, and soap for bubbles. Also offer your child:
- Finger-painting mats, which support your child's interest in the feel of paints and the visual delight of their colors.
- Play dough or clay, which satisfies the drive to manipulate, tear, pound, feel, and dominate.
- Sturdy paper and big, chunky crayons (washable and nontoxic), which let kids express their drive to make images.
3. Motor and Problem-solving Activities
Getting dirty is a treat for toddlers. Take them outside so they can:
- Experience mud, clay, and sand.
- Gather sticks, stones, and shells into piles (with your constant supervision).
- Investigate their surroundings.
Inside, satisfy the desire to manipulate by providing blocks of varying sizes and shapes for building and knocking down over again and again. Nesting toys and dolls are often particularly interesting to toddlers. Given how hard they're working on separation and autonomy issues, being the boss of making things appear and disappear can be great fun! Blocks, toys, and pieces that fit, thread, or hook together are especially rewarding.
4. Language and Communication
Large, cardboard picture books with colorful, detailed illustrations to look at with your toddler are ideal. Turn the pages slowly and draw your child's attention to each figure by pointing and sounding excited about what is depicted. Simple descriptions of the figure or the action will keep your child interested. Leave books in accessible places - even in the crib - so your child can also look on his or her own.
In addition, dolls and stuffed animals let your toddler explore how the world fits together. She can put toy mommies and daddies into trucks and drive them to "go work." She can adore or revile stuffed animals, depending on the need to work out a feeling, all without consequences.
5. Unscheduled Time
The capacity to be alone is an essential skill for every child (and adult) to develop. The ability to be alone without being lonely gives us time to rest, reflect, and relax without necessarily needing to sleep. Toddlers can begin to develop this skill. Exhaustion, both physical and emotional, creates overwhelming tension. Quiet time is one of the best antidotes.
NOTE: Children should always have constant adult supervision when using wading pools, climbing stairs, investigating objects and surroundings in nature, and for any other types of active play.
From Me, Myself and I: How Children Build Their Sense of Self - 18 to 36 Months by Kyle D. Pruett, M.D. Copyright © 1999 by Goddard Press, Inc.
Reprinted with permission from Scholastic.com. All rights reserved.