The 3 Types of Play That Boost Your Toddler’s Development with Cindy Terebush | Ep. 112

0:00Well, play is important because it is not what children do between the important things of life. It is the important thing of life. Children learn about themselves, their own self-worth, the people around them, the things in their world while they play is like a giant experiment for young children as they try to unravel the things they're encountering. You know, we sometimes as adults, we treat play like it's not so important. You know, we're doing important adult things. And we say to children, go play as if that's just, I don't know, a busy thing, but it's not, It's the thing. It's how they're going to figure everything out.

0:39So then what constitutes as play? Play has certain characteristics. Play should be joyful, engaging. And that's true for anything that's developmentally appropriate for young children. It should be individualized based on the interests of the child, should value their uniqueness and their ability to think, make decisions. And it's very based in creativity. Most of the time we want children to be using these deep thinking in the, in the world of early childhood called cognitive skills, so that they develop a foundation for all the thinking and doing that they're going to need to do in the future.

1:22Welcome to the learning to mom podcast, the best motherhood podcast for first time moms who want real practical guidance without the overwhelm. I'm so glad you found it. I'm Layla, the host and your official mom friend. This podcast is all about informing you on pregnancy, postpartum, and early motherhood while keeping it simple and approachable. We tend to lean a bit more toward screen-free play, barefoot outside adventures, intentional family time, and questioning the status quo, asking ourselves if that's really the right parenting choice or just today's cultural norm. So if that sounds like your vibe, you're going to love it here.

2:00Each expert guest brings their own perspective and experience, so please note that the content presented in this podcast is designed for general educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Cindy, welcome to the Learning to Mom podcast. Thank you. I am so excited to be here. I'm really, really excited for today's conversation with you specifically. Before we get into today's topic, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and also what helping kids achieve is all about? Sure. So I have worked with young children and families for, we're just going to say more than 20 years.

2:37We'll just hang on that 20 for a while. For more than 20 years, I started out as a classroom teacher in the field of early education. And I've taught all ages from the toddlers all the way up through and including kindergarten. I also have been an early childhood program director. And now I do lots of different kinds of work in the field of young children and early childhood. So sometimes I'm working with families and I love to facilitate family education. I also work with teachers. I sometimes tell people I make teachers. I teach college courses. I observe people trying to get their credentials.

3:12I'm the author of the book, Teach the Whole Preschooler, Strategies for Nurturing Developing Minds, and the co-host of the podcast, How Preschool Teachers Do It. I just want to do better than may have been done with some of us in the past because we have so much more information now that we need to embrace the fact that we didn't know that we may not have been raised this way and that that's okay. We can do differently with these children. Well, I'm so excited to talk about play. I mean, play is so important and I think it can be so overlooked. So why don't we just kind of start there? Why is it important?

3:46Well, play is important because it is not what children do between the important things of life. It is the important thing of life. Children learn about themselves, their own self-worth, the people around them, the things in their world while they play is like a giant experiment for young children as they try to unravel the things they're encountering. You know, we sometimes as adults, we treat play like it's not so important. You know, we're doing important adult things. And we say to children, go play as if that's just, I don't know, a busy thing, but it's not, it's the thing. It's how they're going to figure everything out.

4:25So then what constitutes as play? Play has certain characteristics. Play should be joyful, engaging, and that's true for anything that's developmentally appropriate for young children. It should be individualized based on the interests of the child should value their uniqueness and their ability to think, make decisions. And it's very based in creativity. Most of the time we want children to be using these deep thinking in the, in the world of early childhood called cognitive skills, so that they develop a foundation for all the thinking and doing that they're going to need to do in the future.

5:08So I guess when we talk about what's developmentally appropriate, let's just kind of hone in here because we're talking about specifically 12 month to 24 month old for this episode specifically. What's developmentally going on in their brain right now for us to think, I don't know, just like when it comes to play or what we can expect from them when it comes to play. That is such a deep question. So I'll like touch upon it. Then you can follow up with other questions if you would like. We know a lot about this age group from some of the theorists that have studied children. And the first one to study children is named Jean Piaget.

5:43Piaget in the 1930s studied young children and said children, when they're developing, go through certain stages of development. So at this stage, from around birth to around two and a half years old, Children are in a stage he called the sensory motor phase of development because children are learning about their world through the use of their senses and movement. And as they begin to get more toward that two-year-old age group, we see them starting to build in slightly deeper types of play. For example, when they're younger than about two years old, they manipulate toys. They are exploring cause and effect of toys.

6:27they're trying to figure out how things work and then all of a sudden one day you see them starting to pretend first they imitate and then pretend builds in and all of a sudden you just see them do it it's like a natural progression also at this stage they are experimenting and this is a theorist named eric erickson taught us about psychosocial stages of development so from birth to about one, children are exploring trust versus mistrust, and we want to give them more trustful situations than mistrust. According to Eric Erickson, they develop hope. In from about one year to about three years, they're experimenting with something else.

7:13They're experimenting with their independence or autonomy versus shame and doubt. So once children can start to do things on their own play to wrap it back around. Play gives us a way to say, your thoughts have value. We know you've gained some independence. We're going to let you explore that independence. Yeah. And there are three ways that we can do that with them. I'll be honest for a second. Our mom club is my favorite part of the Learning to Mom podcast. Mom's connecting over book club, Zoom meetings, diving into extra episodes, and having a safe space to share wins and challenges. And I actually get to become friends with listeners.

7:54It's my favorite part of the whole podcast. The mom club allows you to be more informed with deeper expert insights, feel fully prepared with early access to episodes and have greater support from me and other moms where you can ask questions and share experiences. So if the podcast is like your parenting textbook, the mom club on Patreon is where the info comes to life. You get extra interviews, full length, early episodes, book club Zooms, and a community of moms who get it and get you. I've been undercharging for what we offer. So heads up, and I'm letting you know that the price is going up to$15 after October, which more accurately depicts the value of what you get out of the mom club.

8:40Join now at 644 a month and lock that legacy rate in forever. Head to learningtomompodcast.com slash join. I can't wait to see you inside, mom friend. Beautiful. What an easy little segue. Let's talk about the three ways. Okay. So there are three different types of play that we want children to experience and that actually benefit them in developing all the different areas of development and learning. One type of play, I usually call it spontaneous play or free play. It is spontaneous. They are making decisions in the moment. And the decisions they're making are what they're going to play with, who they're going to play with, where they're going to play, and how they're going to do it.

9:25So all the decisions are theirs. And this builds so many thinking skills. Like I want you to imagine as an adult that you are standing in the middle of a room with stuff in it. And someone says to you, go do whatever you want. Think about the thinking skills that have to take place. You have to look around, analyze what you see, decide what you're going to go to, figure out how it works. If there are other people in the space, you're going to be looking around deciding who do I want to socialize with? Who do I not want to socialize with? Would I prefer to do this alone? Would I prefer to do this with other people?

10:01All the decisions are theirs. And that builds the brain. It really builds the brain. Another type of play is called guided play. Guided play is when the adults have a goal in mind and they set the space. It's like setting a stage. So they set the space up with some things that might inspire the child to play in a way that enables them to learn what we would like them to learn. But the children are still making the choices. is. Okay. Another type of play is adult directed play in schools. It's called teacher led or teacher directed play. You might hear teachers say that in an early childhood program, adult directed or teacher directed play is when now the adult is making all the decisions.

10:50So the adult decides member in spontaneous play, the children decided the how, where, why, with whom, right? If it's adult directed play, the adults are deciding on that. So the adult might come into the room, for example, with a puzzle and say to the child, look, it's the farm puzzle. Let's sit together and do the farm puzzle. The adult decided what to do. The adult is going to lead the how to do it. The adult has like brought it to the child. The child didn't come with it to the adult. That is entirely adult directed. Another example might even be a read aloud. You decide with your child, let's read tonight.

11:33And even if you say to the child, which book do you want? This one or this one? It's still adult directed because you have to read to the child. You're going to be asking the child questions, hopefully, while you read. You have made the majority of the decisions as the adult. So what are the different cognitive, I don't know, benefits for each of those? So they all in their own way hit multiple areas of development and learning. For spontaneous play, it's a whole bunch of cognitive because it is when you think about the thinking skills, when they're making all the decisions, that's decision-making.

12:10They're going to experiment with cause and effect. Like I made this decision. Let's see what happens. That's why they like to make decisions because they love cause and effect. One of the things about the stage of development of this age group is they don't yet separate fantasy from reality. So they do a lot of cause and effect experimenting because if they can't separate, this is real, this isn't, they really believe like things that are fantasy could be possible. They struggle a lot with cause and effect. They're learning the decision-making skills. They are evaluating, they are analyzing, they're doing all of that.

12:46If they choose to play with someone else, like let's say it's spontaneous or free playtime. Child makes a decision, goes over and gets a doll, brings it to you, wants to play with you. Now we're supporting social skills. They have to support their emotional skills as well doing this because it takes some self-regulation to do this. Children learn how to regulate their emotions first by regulating their bodies. So your child goes over to get something with purpose. Like I see this toy in the room and I want to go play with it. They move to it with purpose, whether they're crawling, walking, running.

13:23That's the beginning of being able to say, like, I can control my body to go get that thing. So someday I'll be able to control my feelings too, because our feelings, we have a bodily reaction to. They also, they learn every area. They are using physical skills during spontaneous play to use what they want to use. They are using maybe communication skills if they somehow communicate with the adults who may be in the space. Guided play, very much the same, because they're still making decisions. And this is what people confuse about guided play. I gave the example of putting different fabrics out to inspire, to provoke the child to explore them.

14:03But in guided play, the child can choose not to do that. The child can look at those things and decide, no, I'm going to go over here and play with the doll instead. And the role of the adult then is to think about using that doll. How can I now have this conversation about colors that I wanted to have? And then in adult directed play, it's a lot of following directions, responding to adults. So we have to think about those responses to the interaction with the adult. Not only does that teach them to follow instructions, but it builds important relationships with the adults around them. It builds attachment.

14:46Now it's time for your favorite segment, this week's mom mail. If you're new here, this is the part of the show where I answer a listener submitted situation or scenario. Basically you write in your tricky situation and I give you advice only a real mom friend would give. Here's the email that I received. Hi, first off, I want to start by saying thank you for being an inspiration to so many moms. I found your podcast after finding out I was pregnant at 19 and wanted somewhere to turn to and find tips. I was raised in a Catholic family and I absolutely love it. But as you can imagine, having a baby before marriage was not taken lightly.

15:20My whole pregnancy was filled with anxiousness and regret. It was quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. Now I am married to the love of my life and have a seven-month-old daughter who is so loved and we couldn't imagine life without her. I'm not sure if this fits the criteria of it being on your podcast, but I think it would be so awesome if you could provide some insight for young moms who are going through something similar to have some tips to help and let them know that everything is going to be more than fine.

15:48Hi. Thanks for writing in.

15:55I don't know if you're familiar, but I'm essentially like five years ahead of you and that happened to me. So that's just really special to to get your email with this because I can relate to your story so, so much. I talked a lot about it in season one because I got pregnant out of wedlock, home from actually a Protestant upbringing. It's kind of confusing. I converted to Catholicism when I was 18. And then my parents converted to Catholicism the year after me. So I was raised in a Protestant slash Catholic household and it was really, really freaking hard. It's really hard for me to talk about.

16:42I still have some wounds there that have not healed. So I just want to say I understand. And I also want to say that I am so proud of you for choosing life because it is so hard to do, but it is so worth it. So for those who are listening who didn't know that that was part of my story, yeah, I talk a lot about it in season one, mostly because through that experience, I actually, I didn't struggle with anxiety. I struggled with depression. Prenatal depression is something that impacts just as many women as postpartum depression does, but it is not talked enough about. But yeah, I talk quite a bit.

17:25I have a whole episode about that. So if you look up depression and – like if you type in learning to mom and then depression and pregnancy, it will come right up. So I recommend anyone who's listening to this, go check out that episode if you are experiencing depression and pregnancy because it is real and you are not crazy and it gets missed because a lot of the signs overlap. Loss of appetite, not feeling like yourself, loss of interest in hobby, like things that are easily missed. It's like, yeah, I have no appetite because I'm pregnant or yeah, I don't want to do anything because I'm pregnant.

18:00Like I think signs get missed. So go check out that episode seriously. And then I also talk a lot about it in this episode that I had that was called An Open Letter to My Past, if I remember it correctly, An Open Letter to My Past Pregnant Self, something like that. And that is really a vulnerable episode. So if you want that one, go check that one out. But essentially, I wrote it not with the intent to share, and then I ended up sharing it on the podcast. And I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from that episode because I just really wrote that from the heart, really not with the intent of it ever being heard or seen by other people.

18:43So if you're dealing with pregnancy out of wedlock, know that I've been there. It is not easy. And I am extremely proud of you for choosing life because that is not easy either. And I'm going to speak into that now because at least for me, like I never wanted to be a mom. I believed very much in the lies that society tells you that motherhood isn't worth it. You're going to lose yourself. You're going to lose your friends. You're never going to get to travel again. Your body is never going to be the way that it was. Kids aren't worth it. They're not worth the money. They're not with the hassle, et cetera, et cetera.

19:19And that is straight up a lie. Children are such a blessing. And I'm very, very thankful for my story now. Although it was so extremely hard that I try to block it out of my memory and I try not to go there, to be honest. But I am thankful that that's my story because I think if I wouldn't have gone through what I did, I really would have pushed off motherhood for years, possibly forever, because I didn't know what I was missing out on because I just believed all of those lies that were told, whether that be through viral Instagram reels of women complaining about motherhood or perhaps that's how media and Hollywood depicts motherhood.

20:04So I just want to speak into that, that those are lies and that is not the truth of motherhood. I feel like I could talk on and on about this topic because it is so near to me. So thank you for writing in. And it's nice to know that I'm not alone in my journey either. Now, I hope that was helpful because I I felt like that went on and on because I didn't quite know how to wrap up. Know that resources do exist for you. I do have that episode talking about my journey and my experience with it all. And don't listen to the lies of society because they're not true. Motherhood is really awesome. Really is.

20:43You have to allow it to be awesome. You have to allow it to change yourself. It's great. I'm so glad it happened to me. So if you're looking for advice, email me at learningtomompodcast.mommail at gmail.com with the subject line, mom mail, and then keep your ears open because we might just answer it in an upcoming episode. And attachment is very important to children's development. What would you say in an ideal world? How much of each type are we getting in a day or so? So I can tell you that the American Academy of Pediatrics and other experts having to do with child development say that children need to have spontaneous, free, independent play for at least 60 uninterrupted minutes every day.

21:39And I want to clearly define uninterrupted. Uninterrupted means I am not pulling them out of that play to do the things I've asked of them. I'm not interrupting it unless there's a health or safety issue. That's the only reason I'm interrupting it. Like if you have a child who is toilet training and you realize 30 minutes have gone by and I think I need to ask if this child needs, then you can go over and say, do you want to go and try and use the potty? Because that's a health issue. So health and safety issues are different, but otherwise at least 60 minutes a day. Okay. Is there any guidelines for how much time of adult and guided play should be?

22:24There aren't really specific guidelines about that because the great value has been placed on spontaneous play, which we know the children use every area of development learning to do. I can rank them. I can tell you the children get the most brain development from spontaneous play. Then after that comes guided play because they're still making choices. Yeah. And then after that comes the adult directed play. Okay. See, that's very helpful to know. That's great. So good. Okay. Wait. So regarding spontaneous, I can't, that's one of those words that, you know, it's like, I don't know why my tongue just spontaneity.

23:01Is that what you're doing? I think that's what my mouth is trying to say. Anyway, what tips and tricks do you have for making in your home that type of play? Children need many choices for what to play with. And just because they want, let's say you have a child who usually loves to play with blocks. Well, we never know on any given day when they're going to decide, I want to use this other thing. We want to give them lots of choices. And that means not a few blocks, a lot of different shaped and types of blocks. You might have hollow blocks. You might have foam blocks at this age. Then you eventually head into those wooden blocks.

23:49There are many different types of blocks. You want to have things that cross different areas of play. For example, you want to have things they can build with. You want to have things that they can create with. like, for example, art materials that they just get to paint blob and they just get to scribble. It doesn't have to look like anything to an adult folks. But I'm here to tell you that every time they scribble, they are building skills that will lead to writing and they have to do it on their own. And every time they scribble, they build fine motor skills that you will never get the same scribble again.

24:24It is an original piece of art and it's way more important for them to create in that way than for you to see what an adult could do when they were one or two years old. So however it is they use those art materials, it's good to have art materials that they can pick from that are safe for them to pick from at this age. You also want to have things for pretend play. Even if the child isn't pretending yet, listen, nobody rings a bell and says, today's the day, go get the dress up clothes and the dolls because your child's going to start to pretend today. You never know. Yeah. So you want to have those dramatic play items.

25:02You want to have books they can explore on their own. What doesn't seem to interest them today, but might interest them six months from now, what is pulling their attention? You know, that child, you also want to have things they can make sound with. And I think of that child who always goes to the musical instruments. Well, that child's trying to tell me that that's either how they express themselves or they're very musically inclined. But if I never give them musical instruments because I'm afraid of the sound, I will never learn that about them. Yeah. Yeah. So lots of variety. That was actually incredibly helpful for you to walk through the different types of toys and materials that we should have in our home.

25:47And there's something that I wanted to note in that is that never once you mentioned like an electronic toy. No. And even the musical toys, it was ones that like they do, right? It wasn't like, oh, you bang on this fake drum, which we have a fake drum set. We have some electronic toys. But yeah, I just think that like it's all open-ended. And then just hearing those different types, because you're right. I'm like, yeah, I don't own, I own a shaker and a maraca, but I could definitely get some other noise toys. You can also make them. I have seen people take an empty tissue box and that becomes the drum.