Chapter Five Play in Later Childhood and Adolescence

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition The School-Aged Child: A Need for Belonging  Decreasing parental orientation Power struggle with parents Rudeness, argumentativeness Refusal or slowness in following directions  Decreasing family orientation Teasing, tattling on, quarreling with and annoying siblings Sibling rivalry  Increasing Peer Group orientation

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition The School-Aged Child: A Need for Industry  Increasing self-assertion (Industry vs. inferiority) Boasting ("That's easy." " I can do that!") Bossiness with siblings (beginning at 6) Need to demonstrate physical skills Need to take risks and chances

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition The School-Aged Child: A Need for Order Games with rules Sensorimotor combinations (marbles, races, ball games) or Intellectual combinations (cards, checkers, board games) that Involve competition between individuals, and are Regulated by a code (either passed down through the generations or temporary)

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Characteristics of the Adolescent  A Need for Abstract Conceptualization  A Need for Communication  A Need for Identity

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Value of Play in Grade School  Develop physical skills  Provide an outlet for tension  Foster creativity  Help a child develop his/her self-concept  Gives a child a sense of accomplishment  Make a child feel that he/she fits in  Teaches cooperation, obedience to rules, and concepts of democracy

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Developmental Trends in Grade School Play  Decline in Symbolic Play  Increasing Focus on Skill Acquisition  An Interest in Collecting  The Emergence of Play Rituals  Games with Rules

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Children in Sports  41 million children participate in sports every year in the United States  17.5 million play soccer  Involvement in Pop Warner football has doubled in the last 15 years

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Positive Outcomes of Sports for Children  They learn to obey rules  They learn to cooperate  They learn to “think on their feet”  They learn to solve problems  They acquire physical skills

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Does Involvement in Sports Increase Physical Fitness?  Children actively involved in sport are more physically fit in terms of cardiovascular health, strength, and endurance  BUT we don’t know which came first, the fitness level or the sport involvement  Children who are active in sports maintain their activity level into adulthood, and tend as adults to have a positive attitude toward physical exercise

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Does Involvement in Sports Increase Self-Esteem?  This depends on The amount of success you achieve Your self schema  Self-as-student  Self-as-friend  Self-as-parent  Self-as-child  Self-as-citizen  Self-as-athlete The type of achievement orientation you have toward sport

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Types of Achievement Orientation  Task orientation  Internal standards of mastery  Success is defined by effort  Cooperative  Sportsmanlike  Intrinsically motivated  Enjoys the sport  Ego orientation  External standards of mastery  Success is defined by innate ability or other factors you can’t control  Aggressive  Less sportsmanlike  Does not enjoy the sport as much

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Do Sports Build Character?  There is Evidence of a difference between “sports morality” and the morality of everyday life.  Coach: “Tom, that left tackle on the other team is really shutting us down. I want you to go out there and hurt him so bad that they take him out of the game.” (Bredemeier & Shields)

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition What Should Tom Do?  “In sports it’s hard to tell right from wrong sometimes. You have to use game sense.”  “In sports you don’t think about those things (hurting others). Mostly you don’t think about other people, you just think about winning.”

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition What Should Tom Do?  “In sports you can do what you want. In life it’s more restricted. It’s harder to make decisions in life because there are so many people to think about. In sports you’re free to think about yourself.”  “Tom shouldn’t try to hurt him. He should just hit him real hard, stun him, make him lose his wind, make sure he’s too scared to run the ball again.”

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition What Should Tom do?  “If Tom looks at it as a game, it’s O.K. to hurt the guy – to try to take him out of the game. But if he looks at the tackle as a person and tries to hurt him, it’s not O.K.”  How do you decide which to go by?  When you’re on the field then the game is football. Before and after, you deal with people morally.”

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Functions of Adolescent Play Develop social skills Develop your interests by interacting with peers with similar interests Achieve a sense of belonging Understand yourself better by seeing how peers react to you Enhance your sense of personal identity Develop your talents

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Developmental Trends in Adolescent Play  Decline in frequency of rule games  Greater selectivity in rule games  Increase in solitary forms of leisure  Increase in just “hanging out”

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Movies and Television  Provide opportunity for social interaction  Provide a basis for conversation  Allow adolescents to consider alternative worlds  Allow adolescents to test themselves, such as by scaring themselves.

Chapter 5: Play in Later Childhood and AdolescenceChildren, Play, and Development, Fourth Edition Video Games  Three of every four teenagers play video games  They play once a day on average  Boys play more often than girls do  Boys more often neglect responsibilities in order to play  Only 7-10% of teens could be described as addicted  64% of video games contain violence resulting in injury or death