Play and the Development of Initiative

Another part of developing initiative is play. Mildred Parten was a sociologist at the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development. She developed six stages of social play which are: onlooker play which is  when children watch other children play but do not join in the play themselves, solitary play which is when children play alone, parallel play which is when children are playing side by side with one another but still focusing on themselves and what they're playing with, cooperative play which is when children will engage in activities with other children where they fully cooperate with one another and use roles and scripts and imaginative play which is when children make a shift in the way they view the world and learn to explore new concept skills and emotions.

In order for children to progress through the different play stages, a child needs to work through Erik Erikson's  stage of initiative vs. guilt. This stage is when a child either takes initiative to complete a task or feels guilty for doing it. For example, if a child gets a good grade on a spelling test and their best friend failed it, the child needs to work through this stage of being proud of themselves for taking the initiative to study and being prepared for it, rather than feeling guilty that they did well and their best friend didn't. Children need to understand they have nothing to feel guilty of. This is hard for a child to understand and to get over and it takes a long time, sometimes into adulthood for them to understand and work through the feelings of guilt they have.

When I was raising my child I had to help her work through this stage and even now that she's in college she still at times has to work through it again. When she was in preschool there was a lady who came from a dance studio to her preschool and gave children who enrolled dance lessons. She came twice a week and in the spring they put on a performance. My daughter showed talent in this dance class but there was someone in her class who saw this and was jealous of it and would say rude things about my daughter and her ability to dance. I had to help my daughter understand that it came from jealousy and a little bit of her being intimidated by my child's talent. I had to help her understand she didn't need to feel bad about being good at something or being better at something than someone else. I had to teach her that we all have things we're good at and bad at and that the child who was jealous of my child's talent in dance was probably better than my daughter at something but that didn't mean my child needed to feel badly about that.

A child who has developed a good sense of autonomy will understand they have done nothing wrong or to feel guilty of when they find they have done a task better than someone else. They took the initiative their friend or peer didn't and it paid off for them and there is nothing to feel guilty for about that. Developing initiative in a child is tricky and can be a harder task of parenthood. As parents allow their children to learn new things and give them opportunities to try new things and believe in their child's ability to achieve a goal makes establishing initiative in children easier. It starts small with children feeding themselves to learning to tie shoes to learning how to prioritize assignments and it's important children reach each goal of taking initiative.