Friday, February 22, 2008

It's Not Working

Here's an article on the value of free, imaginative play. All very well. The ducklings are, of course, experts at free, imaginative play. They can come up with their own games that last for hours involving whatever props come to hand. (Right now they are probably destroying my bed, but they're occupied.) So, it's good for creativity, developing initiative, self-regulation, blah, blah, blah.

Except what intrigued me was to read how they measured the results of imaginative play. One way to measure how self-regulation had developed was to evaluate how well the children picked up after themselves. Apparently children who are good at complex, imaginative play are more willing to clean up their toys.

I wonder at just what age this effect strikes. It certainly hasn't happened here yet.

3 comments:

Devona said...

I heard something similar on NPR this week. I was wondering the same thing about cleaning up.

Wendy said...

Must be some time after 10...

Queen of Carrots said...

Maybe it's just a matter of comparison. Maybe the non-imaginative play children pour molasses on the floor whenever they're asked to clean up.

Or maybe it's a matter of interpretation. If you consider hiding all the toys behind the couch to be "putting them away" then the ducklings are actually pretty good at it.