Belle’s OT Corner
Belle’s OT Corner
Play Season: Ep 3 Onlooker and Parallel Play
The journey from solitary to social play isn't a single leap but rather a fascinating progression through various stages. In this episode, we explore the often misunderstood phases of onlooker and parallel play.
When your child seems to be "just watching" other kids at the park or following you around the house observing your activities, they're engaged in powerful learning. Far from passive, this observation phase is when children collect ideas they'll later reproduce in their own play.
As development progresses, children move into parallel play—that magical stage where they play alongside others without direct interaction. This seemingly simple arrangement helps develop early boundary understanding, regulation skills, and social awareness.
For parents and caregivers, supporting these developmental stages doesn't require elaborate interventions but rather thoughtful presence. We discuss practical approaches like using open-ended toys (blocks, cars, balls), creating opportunities for observation, and following your child's lead rather than forcing predetermined activities.
Whether you're a parent seeking to understand your child's development or a professional supporting children's growth, this episode provides both theoretical understanding and practical strategies to nurture these essential play stages, creating a strong foundation for more complex social interactions to come
As always, please do share it around with anyone that you think could benefit from it and follow me on @bellesotcorner on instagram and Facebook for more insights.
DISCLAIMER:
Whilst I will always make evert effort to share correct information as at the date of the podcast, research is constantly happening and as a profession we learn more everyday. One therapist may have a different way of doing things to another, and every child's needs are unique. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others Consult your child's paediatrician or therapist for any recommendations for your child.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Bell's OT Corner. Today we're going to be jumping into episode three of our play season. So we had our intro into play and what play is, and then last episode we had our episode on solitary and sensory mode of play, so some of those early play skills. Today we're going to be kind of pushing some of those skills up a little bit and looking at the next sort of progression that we will see kids start to flow through within their play and what that can look like. So today's episode we're going to be diving into our onlooker and our parallel play. So if you remember from last week's episode and if you haven't had a listen, I really do recommend going back and just taking the time to listen to that one first. But really we looked at that sort of sensory motor play where my play is around exploring how my body moves and works and getting those sense of body awareness and starting to organize all of that sensory input that is constantly coming into our brains and starting to figure out what I can do within a playful way and how I can use my body to interact with someone. And mostly this play is quite solitary, that's not to say there aren't elements where we can get that really beautiful bit of interaction, but there's so much thinking going on that the idea isn't that you're saying something and I'm saying something back and then we're doing something together. That takes much more of a cognitive load than what that level of play is looking at. So today we're going to jump into onlooker play and parallel play and what this can look like for some of our little ones.
Speaker 1:So onlooker play you can kind of guess from um its name, but it's when we're watching our surroundings. So this is when our kids are really starting to show an early awareness of toy use. They might be starting to build an early awareness of toy use. They might be starting to build an early understanding of some social rules, but they really do this by watching, and so this could be, you know, a child that goes to the park and will sit there and just watch and will be very happy watching but doesn't really want to join in with the play but actually prefers just to watch and watch the kids go up and down the slide. Maybe watch the kids over in the sand pit that are digging and building or throwing sand or whatever it might be that's happening. Maybe we're watching the kids that are running and falling or playing tag or starting to explore climbing, and they're just kind of sussing out the world by looking. These are the kids that.
Speaker 1:And you know, when we see kids going through this stage, they might be watching what you're doing and following you around the house to try and see, well, what are you doing over there? And all that's new and interesting. And it's a really nice play stage because it really helps our kids start to develop some of those early attention skills, because, oh, what you're doing over there is different, that's a bit exciting, that's that's a bit new. And so it then becomes oh, I'm actually quite interested in that. So I'm going to help my body and get my body ready to be able to focus on that, because that's really motivating to me. And so it starts to build those early attention skills.
Speaker 1:And there is so much learning that goes on in this stage as well, like so much learning, because I'm watching what you're doing and I'm watching what you're doing with something as well, so that I'm learning what that thing can do, maybe how I would be able to do it, and so you'll see, with solitary play you'll start to get lots of little bits of solitary play coming out as well, or bits of parallel play, which we'll talk about in a second. But this idea of, well, hang on, I watched you do something with this and now I have a minute and I'm going to use my memory because I'm starting to build some of my early memory skills and actually I'm going to have a go at copying and doing what you did, because this is the stage where our little ones are learning by taking in and watching so much the world around them to then help them form some ideas of what they can try. How can I explore that? What could I do with that? So, for example, if you're in the kitchen and you're using a spoon to mix, you might see the kid will start to try and copy and use a spoon to mix something. Or maybe they take the spoon and bang it on something, because it's a great fun stage to be banging. But starting to look at what you're doing and how I can do that myself, it's the stage where you know if you've got some playtime with your kid and actually you're sitting there building blocks and you keep on handing one to your kid and he's like I don't want to build it. But I'm really interested in watching what you're doing because that's way more interesting for me and then maybe later you'll see them starting to explore the blocks a little bit and maybe, hey, I can put one on top.
Speaker 1:But that, you know, and over time and over that, repetition and having those opportunities to watch, but also opportunities to try, is where we see kids start to build and develop some of these skills. So that's our onlooker play, and when we think about onlooker play and what we can do as adults in particular, and how we can look at supporting our kids to develop some of these skills, really it's around allowing them time and opportunities to be able to watch, and what I mean by this is we have opportunities to be around other kids, if that that is a playgroup, if that is at the park, if that is with nieces and nephews or friends of yours that have kids that come over, having these opportunities to be around other children and therefore opportunities to watch what they're doing. Another really important thing that we can do as adults is to be really present, and so when they're starting to have some playtime or if they have some downtime, there is huge, huge, huge value. And even if you could just got two minutes, even if you've just got five minutes, take those two minutes, take those five minutes. Pop your phone away, sit down and be there with your kid, and the goal is not that we're doing something together. The goal could be well, you're playing there and I'm playing here, and you know, if your kid stops playing and just kind of watches what you do, maybe you could talk about what you're doing and I'm taking the block and I'm putting the block here and I'm gonna make it ready, ready, ready, ready, crash. And then that becomes the play, and I'm not expecting the child that I'm playing with to do anything. They might giggle, they might smile. We might share this moment and have some really beautiful shared enjoyment, and I might be using all those strategies that we talked about in our last episode.
Speaker 1:So go back and have a listen around. You know, building that affect and having that really high affect to support that attention and really looking at building those bits of anticipation as well, where we can go. And there it happens. And then I might take my blocks and I'm going to do one, and I'm going to do two, and I'm going to do three, and then are we ready, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push. And so I'm using my voice and I'm using my facial expressions and I'm also kind of talking about what I'm doing in a really simple way just to help build that understanding and support bits of those learning, and so, in this time as well, some of those really open-ended toys can be your best friends, things like blocks or things like cars, because because cars, I can spin the wheels, I can push them, I can, you know, push them towards each other, I can make them crash.
Speaker 1:I can just push them as far as I can and watch it go across the room and then crawl after it and catch it. Eventually, when we look at later skills, we can look at pushing them backwards and forwards between two people and start to build a little bit of that early sort of sharing skills and turn-taking skills. But we're jumping ahead. But if we think about, there's so many things that I can do with the car. I can drive the car up by leg, I can drive the car over a piece of furniture, I can have two cars next to each other that are racing, or I could just have two cars so that I'm pushing one and pulling one and pushing one and pulling one. It's quite open-ended with what we can do.
Speaker 1:Same with things like balls. Balls are great, fun. Balls can be bounced, they can be thrown, they can be rolled, they can be hidden under some clothes and found. I mean, everything can be hidden under some clothes and found. But you can start to do some of that like early what we call object permanent skills as well. So this is where you know the idea.
Speaker 1:I think I talked about it last episode, I can't quite remember, but we'll do a quick summary. This is the idea where if I'm seeing something, I know that it exists and then if it's put out of sight, out of my direct line of sight, I still know that it exists and so I can have the understanding that I can go and look for it. So if I hide a you know, a bit of clothing or a bit of blanket, I can make a move to go and find it again. But just back to balls. I can have a ball and I can throw it and catch it. I could have a ball and I could just roll it over something or maybe roll it down something or have it fall off a chair or fall off a couch and watch it bounce.
Speaker 1:They're quite open-ended, as opposed to a puzzle, for example, where I put things in and then it's done. Now there are ways that we can make that more fun and ways that we can add different bits of challenge into a puzzle, don't get me wrong. But they're harder to do. They're not as natural as some of our more open-ended toys. You know, you could do a whole bunch of play with a blanket. You know you could hide under the blanket, you could appear from the blanket. You could use the blanket to pretend to be a ghost. You could use the blanket to be, you know, watching it, as you watch it, as you swing it around the room, and you can watch it go side to side.
Speaker 1:There's more of that sort of play is a really nice one to be facilitating at this like onlooker stage, because what we're doing is we're showing our kids all the fun things that they can do with an object and help them start to explore that I can also roll a ball off a table, I can also throw a ball. I can also push a ball to somebody else and watch that happen. Or I can just push a ball in general and crawl after it myself, and so all of a sudden, instead of it just being one play script, we're opening up so many a multitude of play scripts and we're doing this by showing our child and allowing them to have the time to sit in that sort of onlooker play stage. As always, guys, if you do have any other questions and things around this, feel free to send me a message on Instagram or Facebook or my email at bellstcorner at gmailcom. I'm more than happy to answer any of your questions.
Speaker 1:But the big one with our onlooker play is really just facilitating those opportunities to watch other kids. You can go and do some people watching at the same time. It's great fun. But then really being intentional with your playtime with your child and having that focus on being present with them and actually just having a play yourself, getting on the floor and just doing something, and you know you'll be surprised at how fun it actually is and how many giggles you might get just from having those moments of time and they don't have to be long because your child attention is not going to be long. You know we're talking really short, fleeting little bits and lots of little bits throughout the day instead of trying to go okay, well, we have an hour and this hour is play time and we're going to sit down because it's you just end up fighting a battle you can't win because they don't have the attention yet to be a sustained play for that long, unless it is hugely, hugely motivating for them. So just keep that in the back of your mind as well as you think about these things.
Speaker 1:The other really important bit to consider with onlooker play, but also with any of the play that we're talking about with children, is particularly for these early stages, we really do want it to be child led, and what I mean by that is it's not, you know, we have to do everything the child is doing, although that can sometimes give us a really nice in. So if you notice your child is really interested in flicking a page of a book in some more sensory mode of play, maybe you flick it back and you can make some fun sounds out of that. Or maybe, as they're starting to explore different objects and they're really interested in a certain rack of it makes a noise and shaking that back and forth, you might join in and shake it back and forth. When we think about this more onlooker play, we want to make sure we're not saying come on, watch, sit down, we're gonna do this. You need to sit watch and we're gonna. You know, watch what mommy's doing, watch what daddy's doing. This is what we're doing now, and can you see what I'm doing? A that's heaps of language, heaps and heaps and heaps of language.
Speaker 1:We actually want less language and just more opportunities, and so it might be that it's an afternoon time or a morning time and your child's just hanging out in the living room and so you just go and sit down in the living room. You know, chat, hey, what are you doing? Cool, mum's over here and I'm just going to start playing with something and they might watch you. They might not. I'm not. We're not looking at forcing those opportunities to watch. They're going to be noticing in some capacity. They may have something more motivating. That's taking more of their attention at that time, and that's okay. But we're just fostering opportunities for them to watch and also, if they're really not interested in it, because what they're doing is so motivating allowing them to play in that and seeing, maybe if they'll let you join for a little bit, and maybe doing a little bit of parallel play with them, which we'll talk about in two seconds, I promise but really looking at, okay, well, where can we structure this? And making sure that I'm not sitting down and saying, okay, we're gonna have to do this, this, and we're going to have to play, because as soon as we put our have to in it, play is no longer fun.
Speaker 1:What we really want at this stage is play to be that child led, child initiated and really following their interests, while taking those couple of little opportunities to just show them something different. And they don't have to engage with it, they don't have to like it, but I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna do something a little bit different. I'm gonna bring in that tiny little bit of a challenge and then that's okay if you don't want to do it and you move away, and maybe you do come back and you watch me do it again, and then you move away and I'm just gonna keep doing it, and it's okay if you're in and out of the room or whatever that might look like. The whole idea is we're just allowing these opportunities for our kids to start to look at and notice other things that we can do within play, and that's the same.
Speaker 1:When we go to the park, you know if your kid's standing there watching or if you're on the bus and they're watching someone, or you know wherever it might be, if you've gone to pick up some other kids from school and you went a bit early so that your kid could have a play on the playground again, whatever the situation might be, just allowing those opportunities where, if they are watching, that's okay, they can watch. We don't have to bring them along and say, come on, why don't you go and join in? Or you know, come on, let's, let's go and play together. Actually just allowing that time and being really child-led, because there is so much learning that's happening in those moments that so often it's really hard to think about and notice that learning. But from watching what's happening from a social rules perspective, they're starting to look at some of those cause and effects. They're starting to look at some of those really early skills around okay, well, how do I join and how do I play with someone? They're watching some of those interactions in terms of, oh, that's interesting and maybe I want to try that later.
Speaker 1:So there's so much thinking that's going on and so much noticing that's going on. There is a lot of power in allowing that time and not rushing them through that as well. So always, always, always, child-led. If there is one thing you take away from this as much as possible we want to be child-led. Obviously there are times when we need boundaries and there are times that we need to direct around bits of safety, or if it's time to leave and all of those bits, 100% we do need to jump in, but as much as possible we want to be child-led whenever possible. That then leads me into our parallel play-ish. We're going to jump to parallel play, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1:So parallel play and you may have heard it talked about a lot you may have a bit of an idea of parallel play, because it is one that is more commonly referred to, but parallel play is the idea of I'm playing next to someone or within the same sort of space as someone, and I'm likely playing a similar thing or playing with a similar object or tool, but I'm not actually having any level of social interaction with that person. So it's the time zone. I don't know if you've been to the park and you see kids in the sandpit and someone's digging over here and someone's digging over there and they're not talking, not looking at each other other, not sharing anything, but they are playing together in a form of parallel play. You know, we see this a lot in nurseries and preschools where you know someone's sitting and playing with some play-doh and someone sits down at the other side of the table and plays with some play-doh, and they can share that space together and they can, you know, build and do their own things. But they're kind of holding that space with each other and starting to build some of those early social interactions.
Speaker 1:And you may find that when your child is starting to engage in some parallel prey, that they're doing it with particular kids. And I find a lot with some of the kids that I work with is, if there are more predictable peers in their environment, well, they're easier to start to explore this parallel play with because I know what you're going to do. I don't need to be spending any of my time thinking about what you're going to do and I can actually spend my brain power thinking about what I'm doing or doing a little bit of watching what you're doing and then going back to my thing and doing a little bit of watching what you're doing, but I'm not having to think about are you going to do anything unpredictable? Are you going to do anything that might be loud or frightening to me, or are you going to try and take something that I'm playing with? And so the more predictable we can make some of these situations, particularly initially, as we see our children start to explore their parallel play side of things, the easier it is for them to start to engage in some of these moments.
Speaker 1:And what we can do, when we look at adults in particular and supporting parallel play, is actually looking at where, how our environment is set up. Do we have space where you can do something there? And I'm just, I'm going to give you a bit of space, but I'm going to do it in the same sort of area as you do. I have enough stuff out that we can share this without having to actually share it. So did I get out, you know, two or three parts of play-doh so that you can have some and I can have an entirely different set of play-doh and we can play the same thing? Or, if you've got you know, other kids over and you're looking, okay, well, what am I pulling out? If I'm pulling out some blocks? Instead of just putting out maybe one pile of blocks, maybe I split that into two piles of blocks just so that some of those setting up demands are less, to encourage the kids to start to be able to just play alongside each other. You know, I'm not just going to put one car out, I'm going to put four or five cars out because that way there's opportunities if they don't want to have to play with that one car together and do that higher level of play. Actually, you have some cars there, I'll have some cars over here and we can play alongside each other.
Speaker 1:In terms of some of the benefits that we start to see within parallel play, we really start to see that early sharing, really start to see that early sharing. We start to see some of those early regulation skills being able to manage myself and my body and my emotions and my feelings and manage my own regulation to be able to stay in this interaction with somebody else, but also to be able to start to manage my regulation when something unexpected happens, when the peer might be a little bit too loud or if they might do something a little bit unexpected, and how I can seek help and how I can help myself feel better to stay in this interaction. And so it's really early regulation skills and, trust me, we see lots of you know frustrations and crying and tears and all of that sort of stuff. So jump back into our regulation episode if you wanted any insights into those bits. Our regulation season. Sorry, but we do start to see some of those early regulation skills start to develop.
Speaker 1:Here we see bits of motor planning. So we're starting to figure out well, that was really cool, what they did and how did they use their body to do it. And can I use my body to do it in the same way? You know, there's always that fine motor and gross motor skill development. We start to see some early understanding of social cues. So if I go up to play with someone and they get really frustrated, I start to learn that actually they didn't want me in their space and that's not okay to play in that situation. And we learn this sometimes by testing the boundaries and getting too close and things were not going so well, and then learning from that and going, okay, well, that didn't work. Um, we, yeah. So start to develop early bits of that kind of social and personal boundaries and personal awareness of you know where my body is in relation to somebody else as I am playing, so you can see there's heaps and heaps and heaps and heaps of like behind-the-scene thinking that goes on as we look at some of this learning that happens within parallel play.
Speaker 1:And so, in terms of supporting the parallel play for our kids and what we can do as adults and I mentioned some of the strategies already, but, just as a bit of a recap, one of them is really just looking at OK, well, how am I setting up this environment? Am I creating a space that is conducive to allow opportunities for parallel play? Do I have enough toys out? Do I have a nice range of toys out? And you know, if my child is engaging in something, will they be okay if I come and sit next to them and play in the same thing?
Speaker 1:Sensory play can be a great one to be pulling out like bits of messy play or paint, where I'm sitting there and painting and making a mess and you know someone's sitting there next to me or the other side of the table painting and making a mess too, when maybe I'm having a look at what they're doing and then maybe they're having a look at what I'm doing, even just bits, with, you know, sand or dry rice or dry pasta and digging and exploring and sharing that space together. Whilst you know, I'm digging for toys and you're digging for toys, but we're not digging for the same toys within this space as well. So all of those opportunities, there's heaps and heaps if you look online. If you're struggling, as always, just send me a message. But sensory play can be a really nice one to help start to explore some of this parallel play, because a it's inherently motivating, it's a slightly easier play skill because it's using a lot of those so uh, sensory motor skills that we've been building for so long now, and also it's just good fun. It really is just good fun when we do the right sort of sensory play. That's meeting my sensory needs so that I can then stay in this activity for longer periods of time as well.
Speaker 1:Making sure that we have enough toys to share and I mean share as in you have some and I have some. Not share as in. We have enough to take turns to use the same toy. We really want to make sure that we're sharing enough so that we both have, you know, some that we can each work with, instead of having to make it a fact that I'm a restricted resource and don't have enough to then use. Looking at, like music and dance, they're really great opportunities for parallel play because we don't have to be dancing the exact same movements. We're just both enjoying this sensation, enjoying this sound, and enjoying the opportunity to have my body dance within that time as well, so that can be a really nice one.
Speaker 1:All of those open-ended toys that we talked about when we were looking at uh, onlooker play as well, they're all equally, really relevant. When we look at parallel play, the really nice big one is looking at joining our child. So I know we were talking a little bit earlier in this episode around the benefits of child-led play and for bits of parallel play. If your child is really motivated and really engaged in what they are doing and what they are focusing on, there might be an opportunity for you to just go and sit close to them and I don't mean right next to them, but show that you're within that space and then maybe, if there's enough of the toy around that, you can do a similar part of that toy or copy an action that they're doing or just do your own actions with that toy. That's those early steps of parallel play, but I'm joining in and following the child's lead inside a session.
Speaker 1:I remember I was working with a child and you know, really, really, really loved watching bouncing balls bounce and that was really interesting and really motivating for him. And so one day I had just a huge number of bouncy balls and he would come in and bounce them and I would sit on the other side of the room and bounce them and then I'd roll some across the room and he was kind of watching a little bit, but he went back to bouncing and that was totally fine. And then I, you know, bounced it again and then I rolled across the room and then he started doing his own bits of exploring with the ball. And that's really beautiful power of play. Not, not a single word was spoken between us. In fact I didn't even really have any eye contact or look at him at all because I was focusing on what I was doing. Now the therapist in me was having a little bit of an out-the-corner-of-my-eye look, but it wasn't. I'm watching exactly what you're doing and then I'm copying exactly what you're doing, because that's more of a social demand. It was actually just I'm having fun playing, you're having fun playing. We're both aware that the other is here because he had the occasional glance at me and I had the occasional glance at him, but that was enough. We didn't need to be directly interacting, and so it's a beautiful parallel play experience.
Speaker 1:The other really nice one that we can start to do within parallel play is look at elements of supporting our kids through frustrations. So when what they're trying to do doesn't work, or it didn't work the way that they were expecting it to, or there was a different stressor that they found really hard to navigate. Maybe it was a loud noise, maybe it was something unexpected from another child, maybe you did something unexpected. And maybe you did something unexpected with a little bit of intentional purpose to then help them go. Oh, I'm sorry, that was really unexpected. Or, you know, oh, that was really loud. Oh, that really hurt my ears. Are you okay? Do we need some big breaths? Do we need a squeeze? Do we need to go for a walk and then we can come back to playing?
Speaker 1:So, looking at what are those regulating tools that we need to help our body feel better, but helping them with this idea of that was frustrating, that was annoying. This is how we can help, but this is also how we return back to the activity that we were doing, because always within our regulation and particularly within play, because it's so motivating, it's such a nice place to work on some of these regulation skills. But, looking at that purpose of well why, why are we helping ourselves regulate and in this case I'm helping myself regulate to be able to come back to that activity? And the big, big takeaway for all of this is whether it's onlooker play less so with if it's onlooker play, but just more fostering the opportunities for onlooker play.
Speaker 1:But when you're looking at parallel play and starting to have those interactions with your child and foster some of those interactions with your child, really, really, really following your child's lead or following the lead of the, the group of children, you know if they're all really motivated and wanting to play with I don't know sticks that they've picked up off the ground, as long as it's not dangerous, we're going to play with sticks instead of the beautiful cars activity that you set up and it is so exceptionally frustrating when you've planned it, you've gone. Yep, I've thought about this, I listened to some things, I've learned some bits and I know what I need to do. I'm feeling really confident and you set it all up and then the kid walks in, or, you know, the group of kids walks in. If you're a teacher and what is interesting to them is entirely different to that, embrace that change. It's really tricky, but follow that child's lead and you can make a nice playful activity out of anything, particularly if it's a parallel play stage, because you've just got to join in and be next to them and be doing the same thing around them or just giving them the opportunity to do that and actually having the confidence to step away and go. That's a really lovely play interaction and we're going to support that and support them to stay within that interaction as well.
Speaker 1:All righty guys, that is our summary of our onlooker play and parallel play. I hope you guys enjoyed and if you have any questions at all, as always, feel free to send me a message and let me know. Next episode episode. So in two weeks we're going to start to be looking at some of our symbolic and functional play, and so this is where there is lots that we can do as adults and helping this develop, and it's where our play starts to get a little bit more cognitively complex as well. So it's a super, super fun one to talk about. But for now, I hope you guys all have a lovely week and I will see you guys soon. Bye.