By Kathy Eugster, MA
January 16, 2025
It’s important to understand the difference between playing with children in a child-directed way, where children decide what and how to play and parents or caregivers follow their children’s lead, and playing with children in a parent-directed or adult-directed way, where parents or caregivers structure and make decisions about the play activity and provide some degree of direction and guidance.
With this blog I want to raise awareness of the importance of play that is child-directed. Even though play that is parent-directed or adult-directed is commonly used and is very healthy, I believe that play that is child-directed is not well-understood or appreciated and that its many special benefits are often underestimated.
Child-Directed Playtime can be very powerful, not only for strengthening the parent-child relationship, but also for facilitating a child’s self-expression and helping them develop independence skills and positive self-esteem. I believe it’s so important for every child to be able to experience this kind of play!
This blog will go over some basic and easy to use guidelines for child-directed play. In developing these guidelines, I have come up with a basic framework that is based on parental roles and parental skills in order to simplify a topic that could be very complex!
The Playtime Framework
I like to identify two general Roles that parents or caregivers can take on during playtime:
- When parents or caregivers put themselves into a Nondirective Role, they will let their children direct the play activities and will follow their children’s directions (as long as play remains safe and non-destructive).
- When parents or caregivers put themselves into a Directive Role, they will lead, structure, or direct their children in certain aspects of the play.
For Child-Directed Playtime, parents or caregivers will put themselves mainly in a Nondirective Role and will only temporarily step into a Directive Role to limit unsafe or destructive behaviors or to very briefly support or guide their child if needed, then return to a Nondirective Role.
To support parents or caregivers in getting into a Nondirective Role for Child-Directed Playtime, I have come up with the following Nondirective Role Skills that parents or caregivers will use throughout the entire playtime:
- Independence Skill
- Describing Skill
- Feelings Identification Skill
- Paraphrasing Skill
- Encouragement Skill
- Following Directions Skill
To support parents or caregivers in temporarily stepping into a Directive Role to limit unsafe or destructive behaviors or to briefly support their child, the following Directive Role Skills may be used:
- Limit-Setting Skill
- Play Structuring/Guidance Skills
Simple Guidelines for Child-Directed Playtime
Step 1:
Take your child to a child-friendly play area that has a variety of toys that are accessible to your child.
Step 2:
Encourage your child to take the lead in the play. After saying,“We have some time to play together now,” say something like:
- “You can choose what to play with.”
- “You get to decide what we should play with.”
- “You can choose what to do.”
Step 3:
Do the following by using these Nondirective Role Skills throughout the entire playtime:
- Refrain from advising, coaching, teaching, correcting, suggesting to, asking questions to, or directing your child in any manner unless the play becomes unsafe or destructive. Give your child opportunities to make their own choices and decisions or to come up with ideas, without being directed by you, and to accept this choice, decision, or idea. (Independence Skill).
- Watch your child and make statements that describe objectively what you see your child doing and what is happening in the play (Describing Skill).
- Watch your child and whenever you notice a particular feeling coming up in your child or in the play, make a statement that will identify objectively the feeling you are noticing (Feelings Identification Skill).
- When your child tells you about something, after your child has finished talking, respond to your child by paraphrasing what they said, which is capturing the content and meaning of what was said by saying it using slightly different words (Paraphrasing Skill).
- Instead of praising your child, encourage and empower your child by making statements that focus on and acknowledge your child’s strengths or efforts in doing something (Encouragement Skill).
- Wait for your child to give you directions to do something or join in the play, then follow your child’s directions as long as it is safe and nondestructive and play the way you think your child would want you to play (Following Directions Skill).
Use these Directive Role Skills only as needed:
- Limit unsafe and destructive behaviors (Limit-Setting Skill), then return to a Nondirective Role using the above Nondirective Role Skills
- Very briefly, and only if your child gets overly frustrated or anxious, guide and support your child (Play Structuring/Guidance Skills), then return to a Nondirective Role using the above Nondirective Role Skills
Step 4:
Give your child 5-minute and 1-minute warnings before ending playtime:
- “We have five more minutes to play.”
- “We have one more minute to play, then we need to stop playing.”
Congratulations on engaging with your child in Child-Directed Playtime!
With Child-Directed Playtime, your goal is not to teach or guide your child; instead, you are supporting your child by letting them know that you value and respect their choices and decisions.
You may want to consider this:
If you are interested in learning more about parent-child or caregiver-child play, please see my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play.
You may also want to sign up for my newsletter (see below), so you will be the first to know when new Blogs are posted, usually every month.
__________________________________________________________________
Copyright Kathy Eugster, MA, 2025.
Please feel free to pass on this article to anyone you think might find it useful.
Contact me at: keugster@telus.net