Our First Play Date!

We had our first play date this week! Our new friend is an older boy (8 months)...ooo la la! It was less of a 'play with each other' date and more of a 'play with each other's toys' date. But then again, I didn't expect there would be a lot of social interaction happening at such a young age. Our new friend was a little more interested in Lilah than she was in him, but I think that can be attributed to the fact that he is a little older. He would reach out and try to touch her and was quite excited to have her around. They did make eye contact with each other frequently, but that was the extent of Lilah's interactions. I am sure over time they will become more social.

The concept of the 'play date' is relatively new (20th century). The idea behind it is to schedule a time for children to get together to play in an unstructured environment that is different from what they would experience in more organized activities. The concept of the play date arose because in today's society, play opportunities are more limited than in the past due to increased safety concerns. In addition, hectic schedules (it is more often the case that both parents are working outside of the home) make it necessary for play time with other children to be 'scheduled'.

Before the play date, (ie. when I was growing up), parents were more likely to casually get together with relatives and neighbours and have the kids play together. It wasn't the case that play dates needed to be 'scheduled' necessarily. (I also grew up in a rural area and, therefore, my experience may have been very different from a child growing up in a city). Case in point, we now live in a city. We don't have any relatives living nearby nor do we have any neighbours with children. Hence, I have started to seek out opportunities for Lilah to play with other children.

Play date or no play date, it is incredibly important for children to bond with other children (even at a very young age). Recent research suggests that children have better relationships with their siblings when they have an opportunity to learn social skills with a peer ahead of time. It was previously believed that children take the social skills they learn from their siblings and apply them to their friendships. However, this new research suggests the opposite. The theory goes something like this...

Peer relationships are more fragile than sibling relationships. If you refuse to share with a peer, you risk losing that person as a friend. Siblings on the other hand are always there. If you refuse to share with your sibling, they are still going to be your sibling. If children learn appropriate social skills through play with their peers, they are more likely to apply what they have learned to their sibling relationships. The opposite is not the case. Children have very little incentive to learn these skills with a sibling because your sibling will always be there no matter what. The take home message from this research is that children need to develop more friend-like relationships with their siblings such that there is the cost of losing your sibling as a friend rather than just a time out if you are not treating them appropriately.

Let's not forget one of the more straight forward benefits of the play date...children get to play in an unstructured environment with other children. Many children today are simply over-scheduled and are given few opportunities to just play with others. We should never underestimate the power of play and the kinds of cognitive advances children can make by engaging in it.