Kids grow through various developmental stages, and each stage impacts how they communicate with people and the world around them. As parents, you have noticed your little ones achieve developmental milestones like learning how to walk, run, talk and play. However, you must also be aware of an important social milestone your kids will move through.
Cooperative play is one such milestone. Let us have a brief understanding of what it means.
What is Cooperative Play?
Participating in cooperative play is extremely important. It means that your kids will develop skills they will need later to cooperate and collaborate at schools and various other social settings like sports, group projects, and so on.
Keep in mind that cooperative play does not happen overnight. Before your kids reach this crucial stage, you must understand how it begins.
When does Cooperative Play Begin?
Every child moves through different stages of play at their own pace. But in general, children start to engage in cooperative play between the ages of 4-5.
The ability to play cooperatively is largely dependent on your kids’ ability to exchange and learn ideas and accept their roles in the play. Usually, kids under 4 are not ready to share toys for the sake of the game. They lack the ability to understand the importance of rules in the game.
When your kids reach the age of 4, you can encourage cooperative play by providing examples. Play games where taking turns is required, discuss roles within a specific type of play, and encourage feedback and communication.
What Can Parents Do?
Cooperative play allows kids to interact with each other and work towards a common goal instead of working against each other. Parents can foster cooperative play by setting up an engaging environment with exciting games and play equipment. Kids can use these tools to work cooperatively.
Example of Cooperative Play
Kids can work together to build a blanket fort, plant tree saplings, tend to a garden, or learning cooking together.
Kids can collaborate and use commercial playground equipment in a way that ensures equal opportunity to play. For instance, children can use take turns using slides, monkey bars, swings. Kids can also use their imagination to view the jungle gym as a fort and assign roles.
Indoors, kids can build cities and construct buildings with Lego, or even cardboard boxes. Kids can also engage in role-playing and recreate scenarios from everyday life, such as playing the role of a doctor and patient, or a grocery store attendant, or a veterinarian.
Benefits of Cooperative Play
- Instills cooperation
- Improves communication skills
- Develops empathy
- Develops trust
- Develops teamwork skills
- Boosts imagination and creativity
Final Takeaway
We hope you found this article insightful. To summarize everything, Cooperative play represents your kids’ ability to cooperate and collaborate with other children towards achieving a common goal. You can foster cooperative play by setting up an ideal environment by installing playground equipment, thereby allowing them to create cooperative games.
