Narrate Their Actions: Once you understand their purpose/goals, narrate what they are doing. It may help to act like a sports commentator by describing what your child is doing. For instance: If they’re spinning: “You’re spinning round and round!” If they’re doing a puzzle: “You’re adding the red piece. It’s a duck!”
Copy Their Actions: After narrating, you can start to imitate or copy your child’s play. For example, if they’re lining up cars, grab some cars and make a line too. If they’re running across the room, run alongside them; if they are making sounds, imitate those as well.
Assist Their Goals: Once you have imitated and understand their play, you can gently join them by helping them achieve their play goals without taking over. For example, if your child is doing a puzzle, hand them the next puzzle piece. If your child is lining up toy cars, offer a toy car to add to their line.
Introduce Small Variations: After assisting them in reaching their goal, consider making one small variation to enrich their play while respecting their flow and not changing their play. For instance, if reading a book on the couch, suggest reading on a bed. If you’re blowing balloons, switch the colour of the balloon you’re blowing up. If you’re doing a vehicle puzzle, model ‘driving’ the pieces to the puzzle before inserting them.
Add Fun, Be Silly: Incorporate new additions to play that are fun and relate to your child’s preferred sensory inputs (e.g., sound effects or gentle physical sensations). For example: Make “choo choo” sounds when playing with trains. Add songs to play routines. Balance a block on your head and sneeze it off.
Create Simple Routines: When adding to their play, establish repeatable routines, such as saying “1, 2, 3, go!” before spinning together. Once the routine feels familiar, add pauses to encourage your child to prompt the next step (e.g., saying, “go” or pulling your hand).
Add Playful Challenges: During pretend play, introduce silly, lighthearted problems for your child to solve. After creating the problem, pause and wait to allow your child to find a solution. If they need help, gently model a solution for them. Be sure to keep these “problems” fun! For instance, if you’re having a picnic, pretend your sandwich falls on the ground. If playing with cars, act like your car has a flat tire.
Play is a powerful tool for connection and growth. By joining your child in a thoughtful, playful way, you support their development while creating cherished memories!
