Play Season: Ep 5 Symbolic and Associative Play

Symbolic play marks a fun milestone where children begin using objects to represent something entirely different. That wooden block becomes a phone, a spoon transforms into a microphone, and suddenly teddy bears need proper bedtime routines. This isn't just adorable behaviour – it's your child building new play skills, problem-solving, and creativity!

We also dive into associative play - as children begin engaging with peers around common activities without formal organisation. Children at the playground following each other, sharing equipment, or dancing together with shared joy. While they're not yet cooperatively working toward shared goals, they're developing the social awareness and skills that will support more complex interactions as they continue to grow and develop. 

We discuss strategies to support these play stages you can begin to practice at home. Most importantly focusing on how we can follow your child's lead and gently extend their play interactions and scenarios. 

These seemingly simple play interactions lay the groundwork for abstract thinking, problem-solving, and social skills that will benefit your child throughout their lifetime. Next week, we'll explore the next developmental stage: cooperative play and socio-dramatic play, where pretend play becomes even more complex and socially interconnected. Join us as we continue unraveling the fascinating world of children's play development!

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.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello everyone and welcome back to Belle's OT Corner. We're going to be jumping in. Well, not jumping in, we're going to be continuing our play season today, talking all about associative play and symbolic play. Now I'm sorry for the little bit of a break in episodes. I'm having major tech issues. At the moment. I have a lovely laptop that has started to show its age and here I was thinking, oh it, you know it got very offended when the laptop started dying. I was like it can't possibly be on its last legs, like it's got some time still, and then I realized my laptop's almost 10 years old, so probably fair. So yeah, been some technical glitches and things that I've been working out in the background, but hopefully, touch wood, we're sorted, hopefully We'll see how we go. But so today we're going to be jumping into associative and symbolic play. So just a quick recap from last time we were chatting about some of those functional play skills and the time before that we were talking a little bit about our like parallel play and our onlooker play. So whilst last episodes really didn't focus that much on the social component within play, we're going to pull that back in together with what we're talking about today. If you haven't listened to the earlier episodes in this season, I really strongly do recommend you go back and have a listen, because it's one of those ones where we work on the building blocks and it would just help you get that deeper understanding of some of the nuances in the play that we're going to be talking about for today and some of the really important bits that this particular play stage helps our kids develop. And just before we jump in, just a little bit of a kind of plan for this episode today but also the episode next week. So today we're going to be talking about those symbolic play skills which are kind of some of our early pretend play skills, and so I'm kind of taking pretend play and pulling it apart a little bit into what those early, really early imaginative pretend play skills are, and so then when we get into next week we can talk more into kind of cooperative play and more complex pretend play.

Speaker 1 2:26

But today's really going to be focusing on that kind of earlier elements of pretend play. So you might hear me reference it as pretend play within the episode because it still falls under that bigger umbrella. But it is next episode that we'll get into kind of the more socio-dramatic play, the really fun, complex pretend play when kids start to negotiate and do a whole bunch of fantastic, amazing imaginative worlds that they create. So if you do hear me referencing it as pretend play today, that's because it kind of does fall under that umbrella. But we are going to be looking at some of those kind of earlier symbolic skills in what we're talking about today. Just in case I jump with bits of terminology, because plays as we've been talking about, plays complex plays, kind of a little bit muddy, it's not always one thing of one and nothing of the other. It ebbs and flows a little bit and so we can't be 100% clear cut in our definitions always.

Speaker 1 3:24

But without further ado, let's jump into symbolic play. So symbolic play is this lovely, really fun stage of play where we start to use objects to symbolize something else, and so it might be assigning something an absolutely impossible function, like I'm going to I don't know if you think of Little Mermaid I'm going to use a fork to brush my hair and pretend that it's a brush. Lovely element of symbolic play. You know, I'm going to get my toy teddy to hold this cup. My teddy can't hold the cup. A lot of the time you'll see the kid holding Teddy's hand to hold the cup. But within the symbolic play, teddy is holding the cup and we're kind of helping that elements of object substitution start to come in. Sorry, I got the hiccups. It helps us build on from that functional play that we were talking about last episode, because it's where kids start to explore this element of creativity. It's where they start to go oh, this spoon is now a spoon and we're in that real functional play. And then we go well, actually this spoon's now going to be a microphone, or this spoon is going to be a drumstick, or the spoon is going to be a snake or whatever it might be. Whatever the symbolic function is that I'm going to assign to it. Maybe it's lipstick, and I've watched mummy put her lipstick on and so now I'm going to try and copy and I'm going to use the spoon pretending it's lipstick.

Speaker 1 5:01

It's where you see children start to explore some of those early skills. And if we think about the onlooker play that we were talking about two episodes ago yeah, two episodes ago where we have this stage where kids will watch what you're doing and kind of have a look at what you're doing, and then we build in these elements of symbolic play. Well, I've seen mum put her lipstick on. I can do that too, and I'm going to pretend that my lovely spoon is actually lipstick. And so then you start to see the elements of symbolic play start to come in.

Speaker 1 5:36

So it is where at its core, is where we're using one object to represent another. So it's this imagining early stages of imagination, early stages of pretend play, where I don't need the physical object but I can assign its value to this object. And sometimes that will be really explicit. And you know, you might get handed a book and say look, it's the phone. Really explicit. They're telling us exactly what it is, and maybe it's, you know, they've got the. Oh, I don't know. Maybe they've got a ball and they go here have some food. It's an apple and you go okay, like a little tennis ball or something.

Speaker 1 6:18

A lot of the time it starts off with something that's slightly more concrete. So a round tennis ball could then become a round apple because they're similar shapes but it varies and you can see kids will jump around quite quickly between what they're assigning value to. But yeah, so sometimes it can be really explicit and our kids will be like it's this and you go. Okay, great, thank you for the apple, thank you for the, whatever it might be. Um, and other times it will be harder to tell exactly what they've assigned that object as for the day, and so you need to kind of put on your detective hat a little bit and try and flip the script and do the onlooker play, where we're watching what they're doing, to try and figure out what the play activity actually is, and so it'll flip between the two. Um, but it's this really really nice stage of play, because it's where we start to see these early imagination skills come in, because we don't need the object anymore, so we start to move more into this world of oh, this could be something else. I can remember what this object is and I can, you know, use that memory to pretend that this is that, and so it's this higher level of cognitive problem solving that goes on to be able to engage in these little bits of. You know, my toy becoming like a toy block, for example, is now my phone and I'm going to walk around and talk on my toy block and for all intents and purposes, in my mind it's the phone and I'm talking on the phone, but to everyone else. I just have a toy block in my hand.

Speaker 1 7:55

So what are some of the benefits of symbolic play? Why do we care about this play stage? It's my favorite question, the why. You know, I love it when kids ask me why, and they go through that stage of going but why, but why? Why is the sky blue? Why do you have that? Why does your hair look like that? Why is such a powerful question? Because, as we understand the why and understand why it's important and why we care about it, and what does it do and what does it mean, all of a sudden we have this deeper appreciation and it makes it do and what does it mean. All of a sudden, we have this deeper appreciation and it makes it easier to start to carve out time for or prioritize different things, because we know why we need to do it.

Speaker 1 8:36

Any therapists that I've worked with and families that I've worked with, I always end up having this conversation of I love the word why, I love a why, and so why do we care about symbolic play? Why, I've touched on bits of it before, but it's where we start to develop this, like abstract thinking and some of our cognition skills develop that we need to start to engage in some of that further problem solving that we get at a later stage. It's kind of the building blocks to start being able to take someone else's perspective, understand something in more abstract, be able to, you know, follow somebody else's pretend play idea, being able to accept somebody else's idea even though I can't see it myself. You know, it's those early skills of being able to step into a pretend play world where there are no rules, or there are rules, but they're different rules, and I can follow what those different rules are because I can stay in this abstract and I can start to substitute objects to do different things. So, as I'm problem solving, maybe I don't have a hammer, but hey, maybe I do have I don't know a fork and I can use the back of the fork to pretend to be a hammer because that will do a similar job. And so it has this really powerful space for problem solving within play, but it also has this really powerful space for problem solving in life in terms of figuring out what is similar in different objects and what can I substitute, but what can we do different jobs as well, and helping kids start to draw some of these connections, to be able to then embrace some of these problem solving skills and persist through some of these connections, to be able to then embrace some of these problem solving skills and persist through some of these challenges that they will inevitably face a little bit easier as well. And not only is it great for developing some of those problem solving skills, but it also starts to have up very early bits of play and sequencing skills. What I mean by sequencing skills is, instead of it kind of play being one repetitive action to stop and change to another repetitive action.

Speaker 1 10:37

For example, I have a pencil like, if we think back to some of the functional play that I was talking about, a child's moved from. I have a crayon and I can paint the crayon and do all this stuff with a crayon to. I can scribble with a crayon. Then we move into this more symbolic play. Well, I can scribble with the crayon, but then I can pretend that actually I finished my drawing and now I'm using my crayon to maybe be a pointer, to point at what I've got on my drawing, and so I've taken what I've got and I'm using the tools that I have to extend on that play and extend my play script.

Speaker 1 11:11

It could be you. You know a child who's playing with cars and I was driving my cars along the ground but I ran out of cars and so now I need another car because I want to extend on my play script and I want to have a longer sequence in my play, but hey, there's a block there, so now that blocks a car as well. So now I've got enough cars to keep going. Or maybe I want someone else to join in my play, but I only have one car. But I do have this random object that's sitting around. Maybe it's a container, maybe it's a little cardboard box, whatever it could be. So that's now a car so that you can play with me, so that we can keep playing.

Speaker 1 11:47

So you start to see this problem solving that comes in to keep extending on these play sequences. You might see it in, you know, early bits of imaginative play around cooking. And maybe you know I'm pretending to cook in the kitchen and I'm making a salad and I've got blocks in the salad and I've got a bit of cutlery in the salad and I've got, I know, a scrunchie in the salad because that was nearby. I've got a bit of paper in the salad and I come over and go, I've made the salad and so, in terms of sequencing and steps, I've picked different ingredients and therefore needed multiple object substitutions to get to this bigger goal of I'm cooking. But the small part of that is I'm going to make a salad when I'm cooking. And so some of our kids play scripts in this stage do start to extend and become more complex and we'll dive into this more next episode when we start to talk about the more socio-dramatic play, when we move into cooperative play. But a lot of the problem solving skills that kids develop in this stage do help with sustained sequencing and sustained play scripts.

Speaker 1 12:55

And then we get this lovely element of object substitution, and so I've talked about it a lot, but it's that whole using an object for not the intended purpose of the object and pretending that it's something else, and that helps for all of that early sort of um mind blank, what's the word early? Um abstract thinking skills. There we go word came to me in the end um, so how, now that we have an idea of what this symbolic play is, how can we support symbolic play? What can we as adults do to help our kids start to build some of these symbolic play skills, and you know my number one's going to be just play. But how do we play? What can we do? Well, the number one thing we can do is model object substitution.

Speaker 1 13:41

Maybe it's bath time and everyone's in the bath and you know you've got some toys in the bath or you're splashing in the bath and then maybe your really early one is getting you know a cup of water and going it's gonna rain, it's gonna rain, and tipping the water from the cup to make it rain. Is it actually raining? No, are we starting to pretend that it's raining? Yes, maybe it's getting you know a bath toy that you've got, or a sponge or something, and going on pretending that it's suddenly a submarine or it's a boat and it's going along the top of the water and you're making a vroom. Here it comes, it's going to crash sounds, but what you've actually got is a sponge and it's just really embracing that playfulness that you've got.

Speaker 1 14:25

You know, maybe if your kid has some rubber ducks and they're all doing things, maybe the ducks talk, maybe the ducks turn into cows, maybe, you know, be really silly and it's you can judge when your kids are ready for it as well, because if your kid goes, no, that's so silly, that's a duck you go oh, I was being silly, I was pretending, but you're right, it is a duck. Let's play with the duck. And so you can kind of have this easy out every time and you can challenge your kids a little bit and they'll laugh and it's silly, and we like being silly and that's funny. And then if they're going too far, you can go oh, I was just being silly, mom was just being silly, dad was just being silly. We're okay, you're right, and you can kind of bring it back and ground it back in that reality, particularly when this is a newer skill for some of our kids to learn or they're just starting to move into the symbolic play. It will be hard work for their brains to follow what we've done, because that's not what that is and I've worked really hard my whole life to learn what these things are and now all of a sudden we're calling it something else and so you can always use that out of oh you're right, I'm so silly, to kind of help that play continue.

Speaker 1 15:34

Maybe you could do, you know, modelling bits of object substitution. If you're getting dressed, and maybe Teddy gets dressed and you use a towel to get Teddy dressed in his you know, in his beautiful dress. Well, it is a towel or a tea towel or whatever. And you know, maybe Teddy gets dressed first and then your kid gets dressed, or you help your little one get dressed and then they can help teddy get dressed and you're doing those early bits of object substitution with them and just opening their eyes up to different, different things that we can do and just modeling that little bit of freedom and flexibility and playfulness that we can have within play. Another really nice one to do is just having pretend play objects around, and I don't mean having 15,000 toys, but you know, when you're having food, maybe you're having food and then maybe Teddy's having food at the table and you're pretending to feed Teddy and modeling, and maybe you know there's imaginary air food that you're feeding Teddy, or maybe you're balancing a block to feed Teddy. You know, going to bed, maybe you're, you know, as a part of your bedtime routine you take Teddy to bed as well and put Teddy to bed on the floor and give him a little blanket that's actually a tea towel. All of those bits help to develop some of these symbolic play skills as well and, you know, give meaning and bring attributes to things that don't necessarily have those things. Teddy doesn't need to sleep. Teddy is a toy, but Teddy can sleep and we can start to have those bits of playfulness and start to look at. Or maybe the car goes to sleep and it's night time for the car, if your car is your favorite toy, or maybe it's a you know Buzz Lightyear toy or toy, or maybe it's a you know buzz lightyear toy, or maybe you know whatever the toy of preference is for your child and it doesn't have to be a more um, human-based, um toy, so, like a doll or a teddy, it could be a car, because, again, this symbolic play is where they're saying that this is something else. So the car needs to go to bed, um, and that can help build some of these symbolic play skills.

Speaker 1 17:34

My absolute favorite, absolute favorite for symbolic play, one of my favorite toys in general, are just blocks. You know we can build from just building up to building a tower, and then I'm going to use my hands to jump over the towers. Or you know, we're going to have something else come in and crash all the towers down. I'm going to say, oh no, it's a dinosaur. Here comes the dinosaur. Well, actually the dinosaur is my hand, or the dinosaur is, you know, a bottle that I've grabbed, or it's, it doesn't matter. But it's something else that I'm calling it a dinosaur, because it's going to come in and crash everything down. And blocks are a really nice one because you can do so much with them. You can make, you know, three blocks together and go, oh, it's a house. And they go it's a tower. And you go, no, no, it's a house. And they go it's really a tower. And you go this one's a house, let's build another one that's going to be a tower. And so you can start those bits of meaning within play and engage in that little bit of playfulness to help them start to do these early bits of symbolic play.

Speaker 1 18:38

The other, really, really powerful one is following their lead, and this is what we always, always, always want to be doing in play is really looking at what they're doing in their play script, following their lead, engaging in their play script, and then I'm just going to add just a little challenge to it, I'm just going to extend on it in just a little way and see well, what, what tweak could I make here? So what I mean by this is let's say, what could you be playing? Let's say you're playing cars. Let's say your child's playing cars and they've got their cars and they're driving around and they're having a great time. Well, you can go over and join them and have a car too and follow what they're doing. If they're taking cars and crashing into each other, then you can have your cars and crash into each other. Or if they're lining their cars up, you can line the cars up.

Speaker 1 19:23

If we're going around a circle in a loop, you follow and go around a circle in a loop. But then, once you're kind of in their play, you might add a little bit of a challenge. You might go oh, this is a really big hill. Oh, this is so hard. The car's coming now you're pushing along the ground, but you're using your voice to narrate that, oh, something's changed and see if they'll accept that. Or maybe you change the you know go.

Speaker 1 19:46

Oh, where are we driving today? I'm gonna drive to. I'm to leave that pause, see if the kid's going to jump in and go. We're going to go to the pool, or we're going to go to home, or we're going to go to school. And if they don't, then you might go I'm going to go to the shops and you drive off to the shops and you stop at, I don't know, next to the couch leg might be the shops, and then you drive away from the shops and you go back to what they're doing and then maybe a little bit later you go oh, I'm ready to drive somewhere else now I want to drive to and see if they'll bring and share an idea as well there, and if they don't, then that's okay, you can bring another idea in.

Speaker 1 20:22

But it's just this idea of helping them start to expand on their play scripts. You know, where else could this car be going? What else could this car be doing? If they're interested in already playing with cars, if they're interested in playing with teddy, what else could teddy do? Is teddy hungry? Is teddy sleepy? Does teddy need some clothes? Does teddy need a bath? Could we pretend, put teddy to bed? You know all of these different sequences that we could do, particularly when we're looking at what we do. That matches up with life and experiences that they know. So if they don't normally go to the shops, then shops is going to be a really tricky one for them to do symbolic play around. But if we drive to the park a lot, well then park's going to be a much easier one. So, looking at their daily routines and going, well, which bits of that can we match up with to start to do these early bits of symbolic play? Okay, what else can we do? Oh, last one, last one, and then we'll jump into associated play.

Speaker 1 21:19

But unstructured play is so, so powerful in these bits of symbolic play. So, having things around that aren't actually obvious play things. So empty cardboard boxes, bits of Tupperware, plastic lids, plastic containers, all of that stuff is fantastic because whilst you can do a lot with it in that kind of earlier play skills that we were talking about, those more exploratory play, when we're doing some of our early cause and effect play, as we start to move into more of our symbolic play, well then, all of a sudden, a plastic container can become a hat. It can just as easily become a tower or stepping stones. Or, you know, a cardboard container can become a hat. It can just as easily become a tower or stepping stones. Or, you know, a cardboard box can become a race car or a spaceship, or it can become, you know, a hideaway, or it could become a boat or it like so much.

Speaker 1 22:10

Just let your imagination run wild and if you're stuck with ideas of what things could be, the kids, you, you know what kids books are full of really nice ideas and actually you can steal a lot of ideas from different books. At night time reading with your kids, you know. If you're reading a book and they're talking about going to the moon, well then maybe in play tomorrow or later in the week you can do some play around. We're gonna go to the moon and be astronauts because they've read that in the book and you can help them kind of bring that out a little bit. It's a really, really great spot if you're struggling with ideas, to start to pull some ideas from. But, as always, if you're having any difficulty coming up with different ideas, just shoot me a message over instagram or send me an email and I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have. But they're kind of the big. I mean biggest takeaway in terms of this is play with your kids. Be silly and embrace the. Doing something silly and having the little bit of a challenge to what they're doing is how we can start to help them support some of these symbolic play skills. So that's kind of the skill progression side of play.

Speaker 1 23:15

Now we're going to talk a little bit more about the social progression side of play. This is what we call associative play. So if we think about the social side of play, we left it off at onlooker play and this. If you don't remember, go back and have a listen to the episode. But a really quick whistle stop on onlooker play is where we have kids that are watching what others are doing but not actually actively engaging or copying what they're doing. They're just kind of sussing it out and having a bit of a look.

Speaker 1 23:47

When we move into associative play, this is where we see kids that will start to interact with others around them around a common activity, but without really clear organization. So they're all kind of doing the same sort of thing but there's not a clear organization, plan or goal among the children. Once we get that, we start to move into more cooperative play. But this associative play is when we have those kind of early shared play experiences. We're having interest in what others are doing around me. I'm sort of starting to include people in my play world, or I'm wanting to be included in their play world, but to kind of do a similar thing and be there with you, but not to actually have a goal that we're talking about and working towards. So what this can look like.

Speaker 1 24:44

Sometimes I find it's easy to think about what these things would look like before we actually start to break them down a little bit. And so bits of associative play can look like kids at the playground that are all sharing the play equipment, following each other around. I'm going up, you're going down, we're climbing over here, but we're not really talking to each other as much. We're just kind of doing together. It might be we're playing with similar toys, but we're not like you know, maybe we're building a tower but I'm not telling you what I'm doing. You're not telling me what we're doing, but we're building very, very similar towers with each other and if one was to leave that play interaction, the other kid might follow them, because the part is actually I'm enjoying doing something with you and not just sharing your resources, but we're doing something together, but we're not necessarily having that bigger picture goal happening.

Speaker 1 25:35

You know, dancing is a great one for associative play. We're all dancing, we're all having fun, we're all moving together, but we're not doing a coordinated ballet dance, for example, where there's sequencing and steps and stuff involved, things like arts and crafts, where we're, you know, working together and using different materials and having that real shared enjoyment. If I'm here and doing this, I'm looking at what you're doing and I might take ideas of what you're doing and put that into mind, but we're not talking about or working on one art piece together and then early bits of role-playing activities with other kids you'll start to see come into this as well. So it's where we see kids might like begin to share resources. We might see kids that are, you know, riding bikes or scooters and just kind of following each other around and having a hoot of a time and lots of giggles and lots of laughter, but we're just kind of riding in circles, and so this is where play can get really complex for parents and adults as we look on, because it's not really clear what they're doing and they're just playing. But how are they playing? What are they actually doing?

Speaker 1 26:44

In this associative play stage, it's where you can see, um, these elements of, instead of just playing alongside or watching someone else, I'm actually going to play with you, I'm going to engage with you in this activity and the person becomes more important Instead of just the sorry complete loss of train of thought. A social play is where you'll start to see these kids and you know the interest in the other person is getting a lot stronger. And I'm watching what you're doing and that's more interesting to me than just watching and sharing something. So if you think back to like our onlooker and our parallel play, where you've got kids that might share a resource but they're not really bothered if someone's there or not. If someone walks away they'll probably keep going. It's just that kind of early bits of watching what other people are doing.

Speaker 1 27:45

Associative play is where we start to see that more social intent and I'm, we're playing together. We don't really know how we're playing together or how we're structuring our play together yet, but I'm here and I'm playing with you and you know we're running around like crazy and this is where, if we think of some of those symbolic play skills, they become so important because we need this level of flexibility to be able to join in and follow with someone else's play, and so it might be that we're you know blocks are in my mind a lot today, building blocks together, but I run out of blocks and I can use something else to keep going with this play, to stay in within this play with somebody else. So how can we support associative play for our kids? What can we do as adults to support them to develop some of this? Number one is having opportunities for them to interact with peers their own age, you know, helping them have those opportunities to watch what other kids are doing.

Speaker 1 28:43

Think back to onlooker play and then start to maybe prompt oh, I can see what they're doing. I can see what they're doing. I wonder what you might want to go and join and, being a little bit explicit in describing so, maybe when you get to the playground you can say oh, there's some kids over there on the swings that's interesting and they're going fast. And there's some kids over there running around and I can see some kids that are going up and down the slide, and so I'm narrating and supporting that onlooker play because I might remember all of these bits of play are going to be kind of co-mingling at the same time, so that then when my kid might go and join the play, they've got a bit of no idea of what they're going to be doing. What are you doing, therefore? What am I doing and how can I join this, and so maybe their preference that day would be to go and do the chasing, and so they know, right, I know where the kids are that are doing the running. I can go and join the running. I don't know what we're running, I don't know what we're running for, I don't know where we're running to, but we're running and I can do that Setting up for success.

Speaker 1 29:40

And so looking at opportunities where you can have like, if you're having a play date, for example, having the resources out that are going to support bits of this play, so not just having one of something. Or if we have one of something, how can we do a slightly structured activity that's going to support a little bit of that, maybe narration or maybe that early sort of symbolic play skills to help those kids stay within that play. Or if it's out in the backyard, what could we do in terms of running and chasing and supporting those opportunities to set up our kids for success? Park, park and playground trips are great for this. When we can have huge bits of movements going on with our associative play. It's fantastic the number of times and you notice as you take your kids to the playground now and you'll see kids that are just running and there's really there's not, it's not chasing, it's not tag, it is just running or kids that will go up and down the slide and up and down the slide and up and down the slide and they won't get tired of it and there'll be a little group of them doing it together and they're loving it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful associative play.

Speaker 1 30:50

The other bit that we can do in this is start to model some of that early turn taking and support your kids through that being like oh I, oh, I know that's so exciting, I'm watching them too. We're just going to wait and then we can have a go and so helping them and talking them through that experience so they know what's going on and they know what's happening and they know that they're okay, but then they're going to have a turn in a second. It's not the kind of forced turn taking of my turn, your turn, but more the understanding of I can watch what someone else is doing and I can enjoy what someone else is doing and then I can have a go too. That really, really early turn-taking skills to support these kids, to stay within these associations of play and keep going within play, because the biggest, biggest skill that kids learn through play and that we can help kids learn through play and we can help kids learn through play, I should say is some of these persistence and problem solving skills that you'll hear me talk about a lot, but it's just. How can I keep going? I'm enjoying this. How can I make this keep working for me so I can keep enjoying this?

Speaker 1 31:51

Because it's hard work for our brain and I think so often as adults it's so easy to forget that play is hard work, particularly for kids brains that are working hard all the time because there's so much new information that they're taking in and so the more that we can set things up for success so that they can engage in that problem solving, have those successes in a really positive way. We can support their regulation through it. If you haven't had a listen, go back and have a listen to our regulation season, our regulation early year season, because you'll see bits of this that tie in around. Well, actually, I'm going to make a little bit of a challenge and then I'm going to support you through that challenge. Very, very similar to when we have kids that go through periods of dysregulation. It happens to everyone, how we can catch those earlier dysregulation moments. Dysregulated moments help us calm, help us get through it together to go back to something again, and it's always that kind of how can I stay within this, how can I go back to? It is the really big core of what we're trying to help these kids develop.

Speaker 1 32:54

But that comes to the end of our symbolic and associative play episode. As I said, next week we're going to be talking about some more of our pretend play and our socio-dramatic plays, like cooperative play, sort of play stage, and then I think we'll just have probably one more episode after that and then our play season will be done, which is crazy. Again, sorry for the bit of a delay between episodes. Hopefully I'm almost seeing the end of my technical issues. I really hope so. But as always, guys, please rate and review the podcast, share it around with your friends. Anyone you think might enjoy listening to it. It is here for all parents, teachers, ot's speeches, physios, whoever wants to listen to learn a little bit more about kids. It's it's for you, guys, um, but if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. But that's all for now. I hope you all have a lovely week and I'll speak to you soon. Bye, guys.