Joint games of adults and children

Children usually love very much when adults( parents, grandparents, educators) invite them to play along with them. Experiments conducted by us in kindergarten show that most preschool children even prefer playing with an adult game with toys and with peers. Let us briefly describe the experimental situation. Children were offered a choice: to play independently with toys, play with peers, play with the experimenter, who had played with them many times before. Most of the 5-year-olds chose the game with an adult. Why? On this question one of the girls answered: "And it's more interesting. Natalia Petrovna knows how to invent new games, knows how to play. "

But not all adults are "lucky".If the child did not have the experience of playing together with this or that particular adult, then at first, even with a person he knew earlier, he experiences certain difficulties when including in the game - this is manifested in some confusion, stiffness. They are surprised and even alarmed by the behavior of their uncle or aunt, who decided to ride on a stick like a horse. Sometimes even the sentence of an adult: "Let's play" causes a child's response, in which inner resistance is felt: "Do you know how to play?"

And this behavior is typical for children over 3 years old. In early childhood, there are no such reactions: children are interested in watching the actions of adults and are easily included in their game.

What's the matter? As studies show, pre-school children clearly distinguish between gaming activities and other "real" cases. For children of early age, this differentiation does not yet exist. Preschoolers have already developed ideas about various fields of activity for adults and children: work and serious matters for dads and moms, and play for children. In addition, children are aware of the inequality of their positions with the positions of parents, educators: adults are more important, they have to obey, do what they tell, learn from them, etc.( Of course, awareness does not always determine the child's actual behavior, but thisalready another issue.)

The adult's actions aimed at incorporating the child into serious activity are understandable to him. Another thing is the invasion of the adult into the sphere of the game. This is an unusual phenomenon for many children, they need to look closely at this: "Does it really play, or only pretend?" In this case, the key to the success of an adult is to change the position of "superiority" to the "equal" position, mutual freedom in relationswith baby.

So, an adult, playing with a child, not only goes into a sphere of activity that is not characteristic of him, but also equates his position with the position of the child. Many parents intuitively find ways of such a transformation, some of them are experiencing certain difficulties, unable to free themselves from the teaching tone, dictatorship, a clear demonstration of the superiority of their knowledge. It seems to be a simple matter to include a child in the game. But even with professional educators in kindergarten, such a simple matter does not always work. It would seem that all the teacher thought: to build a children's home reduced, showed them how builders work, toys necessary for the game, is, the roles are distributed, and the game does not work. Children act only at the prompt of the "educator" standing over them, not their own initiative, neither imagination, nor creativity. And all because the teacher could not get rid of the position of the "teacher" and turned the game into a lesson, a compulsory occupation.

The transition from one sphere of activity to another is related to any person( both an adult and a child) with some reorganization of the internal state. The difficulty or ease of transition from one activity to another is determined to a large extent by prior practice, by measure of pleasure, by the freedom of relations, and by the ownership of the modes of activity to which to move. In any case, adults are experiencing obvious difficulties in the transition to the game. Evidence of this is their behavior in situations of "business" or organizational-activity games, which are currently being organized specifically for adults, in order to activate their creative capabilities in the areas of production, team management, and student education. In such situations, adults have to abandon their usual social roles, they remove the duties and limitations inherent in production activities, the habitual subordinate relations change( the leader may be "in the plot" of the game depending on the subordinate), and the choice of actions becomes quite vague. In such situations, adults experience confusion and emotional tension( of course, at first, until they master the new situation), no less than children who do not have the experience of playing with an adult.

How can an adult approach a child's game without provoking a reaction of protest, and get used to the position of an "equal partner"?This can be done through connecting to the game, which the child has already started himself. In this case, the success of the joint game will depend on how the adult understands and unravels the child's design. To do this, you must first "peep" the children's game, unnoticed for the child to watch him, and then already try to join the game( "Let me play with you, too").

Only after an adult in the eyes of a child has been given the status of "able to play", he can offer and start the game by "drawing" a child into it. Here it is already necessary to explain to the child his idea( what do you propose to play), to interest him, to "immerse" in the game.

But if an adult is difficult to "plunge" into the elements of the game, it is difficult for a child to get out of it, switch to everyday, sometimes boring things. Parents often face in such situations with childish whims, disobedience or mournful requests: "Mom, well, I still slightly, I still did not give my daughter a compote. Now she is eating everything and I'm going to wash myself "or:" I'm still in space, here I will land and go for a walk "," I can not go now, my grandmother and I are traveling on the train, she will fall out without me ", etc."I will not, I do not want to eat," cries the child crying. And not because he does not really want to eat( after 5 minutes with an appetite will eat), it's just hard for him to immediately interrupt the game. To prevent such negative emotional reactions, an adult can prepare a child for the end of the game: "We will now finish the game with you. You put all the "children" to bed while I go to dinner. Finish, come and help me ";"Come on - the cars have already gone to the garage, it's night already. And tomorrow we will transport children to the dacha ", etc.

Let's say that you found the ways of" immersion "in the game and became the usual partner for the game for the child. And then you have to face the main question: what and how to play with it? After all, it is clear that you are doing this not just for your own pleasure. In part, for the pleasure of the child, but then it is enough to "adjust" to his game - to play the way he plays. But nevertheless the main goal of the joint game with the child is to teach him new ways of constructing the game, so that the game activity fully fulfills the developmental functions, so that the child can play meaningfully independently - alone or with peers.

The goal-directed formation of the game is different from the simple exercise in it that the adult consciously passes on to the child increasingly complex ways of constructing the game.

In pedagogy, techniques are developed that allow an adult to do this most effectively and economically, playing from time to time with the child.

The main tool that allows an adult to form a game in a child is the plot. Deploying a story in a special way, an adult can put a child before the need to use a new, more complex way of constructing a game, i.e., to translate a child from conditioned object actions to role-playing behavior and interaction, and then to combining, inventing new sequences of events. In this case, the thematic content of the game can be very diverse, but it should be close and understandable to the child.

But what does it mean to deploy the plot of the game? Maybe just tell the child what and how to play? It turns out that the story, the explanation is not suitable. The child learns a new way in the "live" process of the joint game. Deploy the plot is necessary, playing with it. Mastering a new way will happen more quickly if the adult offers the child special games( special not in their thematic content, but in form), which cause the little partner to be almost completely distracted from the usual, already mastered ways in favor of new ones.

Concluding this chapter, let us recall once again that although in the plot game there are no formalized, rigid rules, this is not a completely free activity of the child. There are special ways to build a story game, and an adult, in order to properly guide the game of the child, to join it, should know them well.

In addition, when playing with a child, an adult should not forget that he does it not just for the pleasure of the child, but for the purpose of forming more complex game activity. Therefore, we offer the adult general rules of his behavior - the principles of the formation of the plot game:

1. Do not explain to the child how to play, but play along with it, taking the position of a partner, not a "teacher."

2. Do not forget about the timely transfer of the child to more complex ways of playing, using for this purpose its special forms and deploying its plot accordingly.

3. Do not lose sight of the fact that the child must learn to coordinate game actions with fellow peers. Therefore, do not aspire to "guess" the direction of his thought all the time. The partners in the game should explain the meaning of the game actions to each other. Do it yourself and stimulate the child.

And now let us turn to how to implement these general principles at every age stage of preschool childhood.