2021 MD Family Engagement Summit: Rebuilding Togetherness through Play

Dorothy Stoltz:

Good afternoon. On behalf of the Maryland State Department of Education, Division of Early Childhood and the Maryland Family Engagement Coalition, welcome to the afternoon session of the 2021 Maryland Family Engagement Summit. Next slide. I’m Dorothy Stoltz, Director for Community Engagement, Carroll County Public Library, and I’m Co-Chair of the Maryland Family Engagement Coalition. I’d like to thank our other super partner in today’s effort, the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, MAEC, and specifically to thank Kathleen Pulupa, Kate Farbry and Mariela Puentes.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Next slide. This workshop, Rebuilding Togetherness through Play relates back to the overall theme for today, building back together, reimagining family engagement. As many of you know, the 2021 Maryland County Engagement Summit is a one-day virtual event sponsored by MSDE, the Family Engagement Coalition and the MAEC, and it’s the Collaborative Action for Family Engagement, CAFE, a part of the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Each year the summit engages district leaders, administrators, teachers, early childhood educators and providers, parents, families, communities, and nonprofit partners like libraries in our different school districts throughout the State of Maryland. This year, the summit focuses on preparing providers and educators to build effective partnerships with parents and families and meet children’s ongoing academic and social and emotional needs. It is an opportunity to reestablish trust and a deep appreciation for one another while ensuring a welcoming and nurturing learning environment.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Next slide, please. You can click on the CC button at the top of the page for your closed captions and we are offering our American Sign Language interpreters. Thank you very, very much. And for this session, please use the chat box for any questions and/or comments that you’d like to make and we encourage that. Next slide. Our agenda will include these welcoming remarks and then we’ll have the exciting workshop with Patty Stine and we’ll finish with Q&A and a wrap up. Next slide. I’ve worked with Patty Stine for several years and we’re in for a treat today.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Patty is dedicated to helping children thrive emotionally, socially, physically, and intellectually. Throughout her more than 30-year career as a play environment designer, preschool teacher, curriculum developer, administrator, and entrepreneur, Patty has focused on empowering others to give children an abundance of playfully engaging learning opportunities. This organization allows her to bring open-ended self-directed play using loose parts to community events and provide hands-on engaging training workshops for adults to help them understand the benefits and value of play for children.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Patty advocates for the children in her community and across the nation through her role as Play Ambassador for the U.S. Play Coalition, Outreach Chairman for the Charles County Early Childhood Advisory Council, and is member of the Charles County Commission for Women. Let’s please welcome, Patty Stine.

Patty Stine:

Dorothy, thank you so much. It has been my honor to have the opportunity to work with you and the Carol County Library in several opportunities and the Maryland Family Engagement Coalition. I’m going to switch presentations here very quickly. Got it, cool. We were doing some testing before the presentation started and didn’t realize I hadn’t gotten this back to the first slide. But the question is, who is in the room? Dorothy is going to share our poll in the chat.

Patty Stine:

If everyone would use their device to sign into that poll and let us know who’s in the room. It’s going to show us a bar graph and Dorothy will share with us the results of that graph once everyone has had a chance to respond. Go to menti.com and use the code 90570129, excuse me, 0192S, and you can respond to that poll and we will see who all is in the room with us. Just a moment to do that and Dorothy will bring up the results for us.

Patty Stine:

(silence).

Patty Stine:

I’m seeing a lot of people are listing themselves as other. Maybe we should have offered some more options in that than just other. Yay.

Speaker 3:

Are we still doing splash day where we’re still on one half and so, it’s not set up yet?

 

Patty Stine:

I like the sound of that splash day. Can I go flash day? All right. It looks like most of us identify ourselves as someone other than a parent, teacher, administrator, or healthcare professional in the lives of a child. And so I’m hopeful that this presentation will… School psychologist, thank you so much. I am hopeful that this presentation will give you a broader understanding of some of the ways that we can utilize play to actually help our children develop socially and emotionally, especially as we’re returning to more in-person activities since we’ve had a full year of being virtual and we’re going to get to know each other once again.

Patty Stine:

All right. Dorothy, if you’ll stop sharing? Yes, ma’am, thank you. I will go back to the slideshow. Thank you all so much. I want to start with the understanding that children’s response to us is very much in response to how we respond to them. Dr. David Elkind in his book, The Hurried Child described these as social behavior contracts and our response and our behavior has a great deal of influence on how exactly children behave with us. And our actions are our choice and we actually get to choose how children treat us by the way we respond to them. Those are social behavior contracts.

Patty Stine:

And one of the most important ways that we can convey to children that they’re valuable is one of the same ways that we probably feel that we’re valuable to other adults, and that is by honoring the time that we’re investing or the activity that we’re investing our time in. And for many children play is the activity that is just as important to them as sleeping and eating and breathing. And so to achieve developmentally-advantageous play every child makes an emotional investment.

Patty Stine:

When children are fully engaged in play they’re not only doing a physical activity, their whole self is involved. Their cognition is involved, they’re bringing to bear all of the intellectual prowess that they have at the moment. They’re physically involved. There’s typically some movement or gross motor part of their activity involved if they’re physically capable of that. And there’s always a social component that goes along with it, because they’re either having to block out what’s going on around them, or they’re having to engage with what’s going on around them and both of those are social components. And that emotional investment is what tags that activity as being valuable or invaluable.

Patty Stine:

Children really do benefit most when they recognize that when the adults in their life recognize and respect that emotional investment and give them the time and space and materials that they need to actually fully engage in their play. Play goes through developmental phases just like any other activity that children go through as they grow throughout life. And we’re actually going to look specifically at the social and emotional context and supports that we can provide to help children grow in each of these areas during their playtime.

Patty Stine:

I want to start out with understanding just how important it is actually for us to support families in interacting in a playful way with their children. This is one of my favorite books that’s been published recently. I had the honor of meeting Dr. DeBenedet at the U.S. Play Coalition Conference in 2019, and to actually have an opportunity to play with Dr. DeBenedet. Now we didn’t roughhouse, but we did play a card game together and I’ll tell you what? He cheats, he cheats really bad, but he’s a really good card player. And that was social interaction through-

Dorothy Stoltz:

Do you play for this?

Patty Stine:

… That play time actually connected me more with Dr. DeBenedet and we still communicate together via social media because he lives in Michigan and I live in Maryland so we don’t get to see each other very often. But what Dr. DeBenedet puts forward in his book is this understanding that children can actually learn from their parents through this roughhousing kind of play. They can learn about self-control, they can learn about fairness, and they can learn about having empathy for other people.

Patty Stine:

The authors go on to say in their book that there are many different parts of the body and brain from the amygdala, which processes the emotions to the cerebellum which actually handles the complex motor skills, and includes the prefrontal cortex which makes those high-level judgments about when something is safe or what we should be doing next. All of those components in our brain are all actively engaged when we’re engaged in play together.

Patty Stine:

On page 14 of this wonderful book, Dr. DeBenedet says that when a child and parent roughhouse they activate various areas in each of their brains, so not only is the child engaged but the parent is engaged as well. And he goes on to say, “These are pathways for motor coordination, creativity, and most importantly, emotional attachment. This coordinated activation builds brain cell connections which is another way to say that it builds intelligence. This, play, this roughhousing play that so naturally comes when we’re engaging in play with our own children is very important, and if we can help encourage all parents to take those opportunities to play with their children, not just with the stuff that they have but with their bodies, it can lead to a much deeper attachment. And if there’s one thing that I hope that you take away from this presentation is that play builds relationship and it’s relationships that helps us build our emotional and social intelligence.

Patty Stine:

Through his work in the laboratory with rats, Dr. Panksepp discovered that animals actually build their neural connectivity when they play with one another as juveniles. And he did a lot of work with rats and actually de-quarter-sized rats to learn how exactly play is developed in young rats and found that this is actually developed in our very base brain structures, that amygdala structure that’s part of our limbic system in our brains is developed very young in our lives and comes online much sooner than our prefrontal cortex does, which isn’t fully developed until early in our 20s.

Patty Stine:

When we start out in our childhood we play mostly autonomously, we play all by ourselves. We literally have to decide whether or not we want to block out the whole rest of the world or if we want to be engaged in an activity with another person. It’s during this very early portion of our childhood that the relationship with the caregiver is the most important relationship. And that’s where we build our foundation for who is going to care for me and where my care is coming from.

Patty Stine:

When we act out in this play behavior phase we actually use our body. We’re going to see a little video of how we can actually support children to help resolve some of these emotional crises that happen when our play gets interrupted or when something happens that we’re not expecting it to. So I want you to take note of the emotional support that the parent that you can’t see in this video but you could hear is provided.

Speaker 4:

No, mum.

Speaker 5:

You’re feeling hungry?

 

Speaker 4:

I want my car seat.

Speaker 5:

You want to go in your car seat?

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Well, daddy said no, honey, not today.

Speaker 4:

Please?

Speaker 5:

What do you want to do?

Speaker 4:

Oh, please.

Speaker 5:

Do you want to get down from your high chair?

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Okay.

Speaker 4:

I want my car seat, please.

 

Speaker 5:

No, we can’t.

Speaker 4:

I want car seat.

Speaker 5:

Can I let you down?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I want my car seat.

Speaker 5:

Okay, can I get you down?

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Okay. Oh, oh. Can I get you cereals?

Speaker 4:

On the floor.

Speaker 5:

On the floor.

Speaker 4:

No, mum. No.

Speaker 5:

What do we do now?

 

Speaker 4:

I want my Cheerios.

Speaker 5:

You want your Cheerios?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:

Okay.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

What is it?

Speaker 4:

Those.

Speaker 5:

Uh-uh (negative). This one.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 5:

Okay, you finish those and then we can give you some more.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

 

Speaker 5:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). What do you think?

Speaker 4:

I want to sit down.

Speaker 5:

You want to sit down? Did you pick that up?

Speaker 4:

Can I get a book for me?

Speaker 5:

Sure. Do you want to go pick that book out?

Speaker 4:

Okay. How about this one?

Speaker 5:

Okay. That sounds good. How do you feel?

Speaker 4:

Good.

Speaker 5:

Okay. Then just go sit at the bottom of the steps and read a book.

Patty Stine:

You could hear the mom struggle as she’s trying to put her words together so that she’s acting in support of her child and not taking on ownership of that upset but to help her child work through that upset on her own and gave her support throughout the entire process. As a matter of fact, in the video you can actually see that once she’s let down out of her high chair she’s more in control of her own emotions, but then mom turns the video camera back on her and that just undoes everything and we have to go all the way back to getting back into emotional control.

Patty Stine:

And that comes from knowing that she has a relationship with mom. And that’s not built in one day, that’s built over this child’s lifetime and having those types of connections when we move from that one caregiver to child interaction, the child takes that with them into the next relationships that they have as their circle expands beyond just their home environment. And so we’re coming into a time when our children are going to be coming back out into the world after having spent a great deal of time just at home with their families. And they’re going to be trying to transition to having that emotional support from mom and dad to having it with the care providers that are going to be in their lives every day now.

Patty Stine:

And this is going to be happening at all levels of childhood, not just with infants and toddlers as pictured in this video, it’s going to be happening for children across the age span. I know I’ve experienced it as an adult coming out from quarantine and going back into the world and working with people I’m finding, I’m stretching my emotional development myself so that I can continue to interact in a positive way with those around me. As children go through this play behavior phase, the thing that they’re doing the most of is building their systems. They’re building their system for understanding, for mastering motor skills. They’re actually figuring out that those gross motor and those fine motor tasks and the neural connections that are being developed through this play behavior phase are happening while they’re playing.

Patty Stine:

They’re also developing their sensory integration system and that takes so much repetition. It’s recently been discovered that it takes about 10,000 repetitions for a new neural connection to strengthen. But when it’s done in a playful manner or if it’s done during play it only takes about 400 repetitions because we are more engaged when we’re in involved in play because our whole self is involved. How can we help support children in this very early stage? They need lots of un-distracted time, they need to be in spaces with materials where there are less distractions than could be in the great big wide open world.

Patty Stine:

They also need us to adjust our expectations. See, children at this very young age have not yet learned that if something is taken away from them that they might get it back later, they haven’t experienced it enough. And so our job is to adjust our expectations and not have them be forced to share or forced to take turns in this very youngest phase of their play behavior development. This is more likely to cause an emotional crisis. If we can actually supply enough materials we can actually prevent a lot of this emotional angst that’s caused when we’re forced to share or take turns before we’re ready. We get ready pretty quickly but we do need that time to figure out that it’s okay if something doesn’t go exactly how we’re prepared for it to go.

Patty Stine:

One of the biggest ways that we can actually build relationships with children is by sharing close space with them, and taking time to read together is one of those ways. And some of my favorite things, some of my favorite books to share with children at this phase actually help them understand what those emotions are that are going on inside them and actually labels them. David Shannon has written some fabulous books and explains the emotions that children are feeling.

Patty Stine:

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus certainly transfers all of our emotional understanding and social interactions to the pigeon. And so it’s a little easier for a child recognize those pictures that the pigeon might be feeling angry and we can actually begin then to in the context of that story help the children understand that they have the control of their emotions and their emotions have names and they can actually begin to understand that and build those connections. I’m going to stop sharing for a moment and Dorothy is going to introduce us to a idea board. If you can use your device to bring up this ideaboardz.com and it’s going to bring up a…

Dorothy Stoltz:

It’s in the chat there, Patty.

Patty Stine:

Yes. Thank you, Dorothy. Yes, there’s a link to it in the chat. And you can add post-it notes to this idea board and we can all then keep these ideas. Dorothy can export it into a PDF or you can screenshot it for yourself, but throughout the rest of this presentation we’re actually going to keep adding things to this idea board so that you can have some of the applications to take for yourself. I see we’re starting to get some ideas added to our board already. There are activities that you can do or applications that you could have to actually incorporate into your play and your work with families and children.

Dorothy Stoltz:

And you just click on the plus sign under the area that applies to you and a little post-it note will come up that you can type right in.

 

Patty Stine:

All right. Ms. Dorothy, if you’ll let me have my…

Dorothy Stoltz:

Screen back?

Patty Stine:

Yes, my screen share back, yeah.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Go for it.

Patty Stine:

Thank you so much. During the next phase of play behavior children emerge into this parallel type of play where they’ll actually parallel play with adults but they’ll parallel-play with their peers as well and older children. And so they’re watching what others are doing and they will actually incorporate those ideas into their play. You can see that these two young boys are actually watching how we each other is stacking their blocks and each one is trying to make his own stack. They’re playing alongside one another. This is a social method of play. Although they’re not interacting directly with one another, they’re interacting alongside one another.

Patty Stine:

Throughout this play behavior phase we’re collecting information mostly in the cognitive domain. This play behavior phase is characterized by children asking many, many questions and they typically start with, why? It’s because they’re trying to figure out how the world works and how the world is organized. And we’re going to know that children are moved into this next play behavior phase because they start to use their toys when they’re acting out. And this is when we can actually most help children grasp the concept of how important it is for them to be in control of their own behavior and their own choices, because we can actually physically see how it is that they’re getting ready to act out.

Patty Stine:

Throughout this play behavior phase we’re learning our system for problem solving, and it takes thousands of repetitions to learn to be a good problem solver. One of the important things to understand about play is play is not about the product at the end, it’s not whether or not I actually solved the puzzle or made the craft, play is about the process. The process is all about the activity of thinking about how this goes together. It’s that process that becomes so important.

Patty Stine:

Dr. DeBenedet has in his book on the art of roughhousing, this activity that parents can do with their children they call it the Rogue Dumbo. This is one of the fun parts about the art of rough housing is it actually has diagrams and instructions on a wide variety of how a roughhousing activities. Again, it’s explained in the beginning of the book about why you should do it but then it goes through the how you can interact in a roughhousing way to play with your children. And some of these activities are also appropriate, this one probably not so much but I’ll show you one in a little bit, are some activities that even care providers can do alongside the children that they’re caring for. It doesn’t need to just be parent and child but you can also use them in your work with children.

Patty Stine:

Are there some methods that we could add to our board that would specifically speak to children that are in this parallel play, this cognitive kind of play that we could add to our list when we’re interacting with parents and home visitors and childcare providers to support children in play? I’m seeing that you all have added, parents can come in the classroom with their children, I like that idea. Oh, I like the idea of touring the public parks, absolutely. There’s a long list of things that you could actually take to the park with you, especially for children in this cognitive play that can add to loose parts adding to the play at the park is a wonderful way to include the parent as well as the caregiver in the play.

Patty Stine:

I see using loose parts encourages imagination, absolutely. Creating specific play centers in the classroom. And I would love to add on to that, that not only should there be specific play centers but that materials that are in the specific play center can travel to a different play center because sometimes the counting bears in the math center might need to go over to the block center so that there’s characters in our castle that we’re building. So that can that migration be okay for children especially in this cognitive kind of play.

Patty Stine:

The next phase of development is characterized by the development of ethics of the ethical system of children. Children in this play behavior phase are judging whether or not everything is fair. And we start out only understanding that things are fair in relationship to self and this is the play behavior phase where it becomes very important for children to be encouraged to make things fair for others. And that’s part of our social contract with children during play, is that we’re going to coach them on how to be fair to others and to help them grow both socially and emotionally.

Patty Stine:

We’re using a lot of rules in this play behavior phase. If ever you want to know how to help children understand that they should stop something, you got to ask them what the rules are about it. Because children in this play behavior phase will tell you what the rules are and their internalized rules that they’ve learned from a variety of different sources, but those internalized rules govern their behavior, and if you can get them to express to you what those rules are you can use those rules to your advantage and help them understand how to grow from those rules.

Patty Stine:

When they act out in this play behavior phase they boss one another around. They demand how things should be done. I have another short video clip for you where you can see this in action. And I want to take notice in this video clip how it is that these children work out their conflict during their play.

Speaker 6:

[inaudible 00:33:16] Get up. Get up. Get up.

Speaker 7:

Bad boy.

Speaker 6:

I didn’t do it. [inaudible 00:33:52].

Speaker 7:

Stop it, Adam. [inaudible 00:35:07].

Patty Stine:

I’m going to stop screen sharing and I do believe that we have the ability for coming off of mute, and if you’d like to come on camera then you’re welcome to, but I love to hear what you thought about what you saw happening in that video. And anyone like to share about what you saw happening in that video?

Diana:

Hey, Patty, it’s Diana.

Patty Stine:

Hi.

Diana:

Good to see you. What I had good to see you. What I really liked was the adult let the children resolve the conflict on their own and problem-solve on their own.

Patty Stine:

Thank you, Diana. Anybody else notice anything? Anything about how the materials that the children were using? Yes, they were actively playing, absolutely. They didn’t even really notice that the camera was recording them.

Kim:

Hi, good morning, Patty.

Patty Stine:

Hi, Kim.

Kim:

Hi. You made a comment earlier about how important it is that there’s enough toys for everyone and in that scenario there wasn’t just enough toys for everybody. There was also an opportunity to have a different job, a different play area to be in that space. One person could direct water, one person can stop water and play and then another person could be at the very end and direct the flow. I thought that was a good opportunity for play.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely. And that’s all about how the adults sets up the space. And that’s one of the important ways that we can actually provide for children in their play, is by providing enough materials, enough space, and enough time. Time to get engaged in play together is very important. The other thing that I noticed was very interesting about that was that the two of the boys obviously had a relationship together because they talked to each other with their names, but the other young boy didn’t react aggressively when his structure got knocked down.

 

Patty Stine:

Was that just a characteristic of who that child is? Was that just a characteristic of it’s okay because I can rebuild it? It’s a number of different influencing factors that could have brought about a bad scenario, but as the adults stepping back and just allowing it to happen the children were given more positive emotional support. Yes. Tina, yes. The materials were natural although those blocks of wood that looked natural are actually recycled treks. It’s trash that would have ordinarily been thrown away but this context was allowed to be used for play.

Patty Stine:

All right. Anybody else have any other comments before I go back to the presentation? All right, well, we’ll go back to the presentation. Through this play behavior phase children are learning to be a student of human nature. They’re learning that their voice intonations, that their body language actually has just as much meaning as their words do. And they’re learning to watch what someone else is doing as well as how they’re being how they’re responding to that person.

Patty Stine:

Children who are given many opportunities to work out their own conflicts like these children were are more likely to be adults that are going to try and work out their conflicts with their peers. Children who expect someone else to come in or who are conditioned to, for lack of a better word, conditioned to, always have someone else come in and solve their conflict for them are likely to be adults that look for someone else to come and solve their conflicts as well. So it’s through this play behavior phase that we can actually become self-reliant on solving our conflicts.

Patty Stine:

All right. Are there other methods, are there other things that we can do for those children who are in this rule-making play? How can we support parents specifically when their children achieve this more sophisticated level of play to have more engaging play opportunities with and for their children? Let’s see what you all are adding to the idea board.

Dorothy Stoltz:

And, Patty, this Dorothy. Why-

Patty Stine:

Yes, ma’am.

Dorothy Stoltz:

… Don’t you go ahead and share that so people can just see it on the screen?

Patty Stine:

All right, go ahead.

Dorothy Stoltz:

There we go.

Patty Stine:

Home visitors should have play spaces and activities set up during visits. A chalkboard wall helps you and the kiddos draw and play and write stories they can present to their family. I like that. Encourage group meetups at local parks, very good idea. Could be a little overwhelming to tell… Oh, I read that word wrong. It says events. Tell parents about events going on in the community. Use materials already in the home to set up play spaces. Absolutely. Especially things that you might find in the recycling bin. I like to use a lot of plastic food containers for my building projects. This is going to be a wonderful resource for all of you to keep with you after this presentation, so keep sharing your ideas.

Patty Stine:

The final phase of play behavior is the behavior where children begin to play in groups. And these are our most sophisticated players. And, man, they’re a wonderful resource for actually helping our younger less sophisticated players achieve the highest level of benefit. We can actually task these children with the job of helping the younger children get engaged in play. We can invite them to set up an obstacle course for the younger children or we could engage them in building a fort or a playhouse for the younger children and engage them in play in that way.

Patty Stine:

A friend of mine from the U.S. Play Coalition has actually designed a set of stencils to use with chalk or paint where you can actually use them to create games on a surface or on an asphalt surface or a concrete surface or an obstacle course, but doesn’t require any equipment other than the stencils and some chalk. And when children who are playing in groups actually get together and plan out what they’re going to do they’ll probably be resistant to it at first but given enough time they will not want to be done when you’ve probably run out of time to move on to the next thing. They’re actually learning through that social interaction. This is their preferred domain for collecting information, they want to engage with other people.

Patty Stine:

A lot of children at this more sophisticated level will be bored if they’re by their self because they want to interact with someone else. So this is a key time life where those parent relationships, once again become very important, especially for an only child to have opportunities to engage on a social level with their parents. When they act out they shun or they single out somebody out of the group and they don’t involve someone that isn’t behaving the way they want them to behave.

Patty Stine:

And this is another opportunity for us to help coach children that have been singled out or are doing the singling out to help include children and help include everyone in the play, and our job is to help them find ways to include the children that have been singled out. Children through this that are coached through this process learn to become effective communicators, not just using their words but also using their voice intonation and their willingness to change what it is they’re doing so that everyone feels included. That’s how you become an effective communicator. You’re getting across your message but it’s not just about you it’s about including others in the activity as well.

Patty Stine:

In his book Free to Learn, Dr. Peter Gray has actually described a story that he heard that was attributed to Hillary Clinton, where she actually remembers her childhood in New York City where she was playing on a street corner with children and changing what it was that she wanted to do and getting everybody involved in the play and learning to help get group consensus. And she attributed her ability to be a good Secretary of State and be a good negotiator on the world stage to that play that she did in her childhood on the streets of New York.

Patty Stine:

This is another one of those activities that brings in the rough housing and it includes imagination and physical interaction. And this is definitely one of the activities that we as care providers could encourage other care providers to do or encourage parents to do that’s included in The Art of Roughhousing, but this is very social in context so it’s very applicable for children who are in this more sophisticated level of play.

Patty Stine:

Are there other activities or methods that we should add to our list on the idea boards that we could include for even middle and high school students? Is there anyone in the group that works directly with middle and high school students? Are there some ideas that we could share with those parents and those practitioners that are working directly with them? I’m going to hit refresh on my other screen so I can see if anybody’s added anything.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Do you want me to do a quick share, Patty?

Patty Stine:

I’m not seeing anything new on there. Does anyone have anything? Would you like to unmute and share? Okay. Pam Montgomery must have recognized the play equipment that was in the picture, snug play I believe it’s called. Build your own playground equipment, exactly. Yes, it’s snug play.

Pam Montgomery:

I couldn’t remember some of those letters but it’s really good equipment.

Patty Stine:

Yes.

Pam Montgomery:

Concerning play activities for teenagers it’s so much harder to get teenagers to instigate that play, that creative mind without a board game or Dungeons & Dragons, which everybody has opinions on but it’s a really good play opportunity for children, so are cards like Pokemon and so on.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely.

Pam Montgomery:

But having peer play, inviting teenagers to have appropriate creative play with children younger than them, a few years younger, a gap of about five years of experience is best because they don’t view them as a peer, so when they want to interact with they’re not afraid to interact with those children in a silly way. That kind of peer relationship is so important and really starts play for teenagers.

Patty Stine:

You are exactly right. And that’s one of the reasons that I really like to engage teenagers in opportunities to design an environment where younger children will be playing because it gives them those opportunities to work with their peers but also to have a purpose in their play. So, absolutely. And it’s not just teenagers and middle schoolers and high schoolers that are resistant to play, it actually takes a lot of work sometimes to get adults to want to play because for so long we think that play is frivolous and unimportant but it’s actually very important to all of us to help interact in a social way and keep our social skills sharp and beneficial for all of humanity. As a matter of fact this is a that I took in my work at an adult addiction recovery center where I do an hour of play therapy. So a very useful tool for everyone.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Patty, before you go on-

Patty Stine:

Yes, ma’am.

Dorothy Stoltz:

… Just there were a couple of more suggestions in the chat for the older students.

Patty Stine:

Yes, Pokémon Go. I see that one. Geocaching, absolutely. Kahoot is a wonderful, wonderful play opportunities. I’ve not seen the card game Speed. I’ll have to check that one out. You all are welcome to add these to the idea board so that everyone can have these ideas when they leave here. I think that a fabulous place also to put some of these ideas would be to include them. Yes, team sports are also very important. Actually that is the end of our presentation. Just had this last cute little picture to invite any other questions or comments.

Dorothy Stoltz:

And while people are thinking on it, Patty, one of the things that came to my mind, you were talking about encouraging parents, caregivers to step back so children can develop their problem solving skills. And I wondered if… I know that it’s dependent of course on individual child and circumstances, if you will, but is there developmental stages for when to step in, how much leeway to give on this, give them time to figure it out on their own?

Patty Stine:

One of the best methods is to instead of answering children’s questions when they come to you or immediately jumping in with an answer to solve a problem really is to use a Socratic questioning method. And instead of answering a question or coming at a child with a solution to a problem, let’s say I saw a young man playing one day and what he was doing could have hurt someone. And so rather than just telling him to stop I used a Socratic questioning method and said, “Is what you’re doing safe?” And got the answer and then asked them a question, “Is there another way that you could do it that would be more safe?” And continued until he had another method of doing what he wanted to do that would be more safe.

Dorothy Stoltz:

That’s great. As a librarian I love Socrates, so using the Socratic questioning method does is great and it sounded like it works. There’s another question here for you. Can you recommend any books that elaborate on the stages of play that you were describing?

Patty Stine:

There are so many. I’m trying to think of the one best resource. Honestly. Dr. David Elkind’s books on The Hurried Child, The Power of Play, they describe these phases of development that children go through. Another wonderful resource that I wanted to share with everyone, especially for practitioners as we move back into the classroom is this resource. This was just published last year. It’s available on Amazon and has all kinds of wonderful playful activities that we can include in our classroom and in our home visiting settings where we can incorporate play as the method of learning, and I do believe that they also describe the phases of play in their book.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Why don’t you put your email into the chat and people could contact you if they wanted to follow up with, if you could give them a list of books or whatever?

Patty Stine:

Will be happy to.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Let’s see…

Becky:

Patty.

Patty Stine:

Yes.

Becky:

This is Becky.

Patty Stine:

Hi.

Becky:

Hi. Sorry for any background noise, but could you also speak a little bit to actually how you encourage adults to play so that they become more playful in nature?

Patty Stine:

Specifically playing in nature and outdoor settings or?

Becky:

In any setting.

Patty Stine:

In any setting.

Becky:

Whenever you have any of your trainings there are ways that you encourage, which I’m missing right now. Ways that you encourage the adults present to play. And so speak to that a little bit.

Patty Stine:

Most often the thing that’s missing is the invitation. Adults need to be given permission to play because they don’t always feel comfortable to play and they also need to have the materials and the space to do it, just like children do. So inviting adults into a playful headspace, into a playful setting is mostly done by whoever is in charge of that setting making it a setting where play is acceptable and modeling is one of the best ways. Absolutely, Diana. It’s that we don’t have to be good at it, we can just do it. That playful spirit that you can provide can actually just be the invitation that somebody else needs to be able to be engaged in play themselves. Any-

Angela Schneider:

Patty?

Patty Stine:

… Other questions or comments? Yes.

Angela Schneider:

Hi. I’m Angela Schneider. I’m from Anne Arundel County Public Schools.

Patty Stine:

Hi, Angela.

Angela Schneider:

Hi, thanks for your presentation today.

Patty Stine:

My pleasure.

Angela Schneider:

I did just want to jump in and give an example when you talk about group play. I have two sons who are 12 and 14 years old, and one of the activities that they do, we live in a townhouse neighborhood with a lot of kids and kids in this neighborhood age in range from one years old all the way up to 16. And what I noticed my children doing is exactly what you talked about with that group play is they become the leaders of activities and then they engage the younger children to play with them.

Angela Schneider:

For example, they play Wiffle Ball. It’s a plastic bat, a ball that’s not going to hurt really if you get hit with it. And what I find my children doing is coaching the younger kids on how to hold the bat, how to swing, where to run. It gives them a sense of leadership, I feel like, and they seem to enjoy the activity and us parents we just sit back and watch all the play take place. But I wanted to point that out it gives them a chance to develop some leadership skills during play.

Patty Stine:

It absolutely does. And I bet if you watch them very closely you’ll notice that they actually withhold their strength and don’t play to their highest level because they want to keep those younger children engaged in the play because it’s beneficial to them to stay engaged in play as well. And so they will withhold some of their strength. They won’t always knock the ball out of the park, they will intentionally bunt or intentionally hit the ball so that another child can capture it and be part of the play because keeping the play going is very important for them as well as for the younger children. And that is one of the ways that we actually learn to develop self-control and empathy. And that’s something that we do best when we’re in those mixed age group place scenarios.

Angela Schneider:

I would agree with that. Thank you. It’s great to point out the next time they play I’m going to keep closer watch to see if that’s exactly what’s happening, but I do think you’re probably spot on with that, that they’re wanting to keep that play going as well which is great to see as a parent.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely. It’s one of the things that Dr. DeBenedet talks about in his book in roughhousing that parents actually teach their children to play fair through that strength withholding.

Angela Schneider:

All right. Well, thank you.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Patty, it looks like there’s a couple more comments in the chat.

Patty Stine:

Tina says that she enjoys using different voices when playing with the children or while reading a book or playing with toys. That definitely adds to a child’s imaginative repertoire to know that that’s something that they could do as well when they see that modeled for them and using hand puppets and giving those different voices. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Carolyn says that engaging in play brings out the child in all of us. Yes, absolutely.

Patty Stine:

I am often asked what it is that I do for my own play, how is it that I play? And I’ve learned that my play is actually setting up for other people’s play. Figuring out opportunities for others to play is very engaging to me and that’s how I play. Designing play environments or even just figuring out what loose parts or games I want to bring to a certain setting so that others can have that engaging play opportunity.

Patty Stine:

Sometimes prizes definitely can help. I’ve started bringing candy to the recovery center when we play in that, but it does seem to engage. But I find that if the motivation is intrinsic, internal rather than extrinsic or external, that it actually is more motivating. So finding the way to light the internal fire and using your own internal motivation actually is much more beneficial than that external. Yes, modeling how to play peacefully is important but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s necessarily going to be quiet because sometimes peaceful play can be very loud and rambunctious, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not peaceful.

Patty Stine:

Yes, you’re right, Rosemary. Having an external motivator does help get them engaged, you’re exactly right. And once you have them hooked hopefully they’re developing more of that intrinsic motivation. One of the things I’ve been encouraging the adults to do in their play is that strength withholding and actually intentionally lose the game.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Did you get a chance, Patty, just to look over the idea for just one more time?

Patty Stine:

I will take a look.

Dorothy Stoltz:

There’s particularly-

Patty Stine:

Very interesting suggestions.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Yeah. Some of the older kids and the teens… Things that computers are good and other kinds of play are good too.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely.

 

Patty Stine:

(silence).

Patty Stine:

Well, Dorothy, do you want to go ahead and put the PDF a link to the PDF in the chat-

Dorothy Stoltz:

Okay.

Patty Stine:

… Or do we want to email that out later?

Dorothy Stoltz:

Kathleen, is that something we can email out later or she might try to do that right now. If we do it later make sure everybody gets it. Yeah.

Kathleen Pulupa:

I would say if you can put it in the chat and we’ll also email it out.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Okay, great, great, great. And maybe, Patty, we can put together a little list of some of your top books that could be emailed out as well.

Patty Stine:

Absolutely.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Okay. Okay. So the PDF isn’t as colorful but it has all the information. There it is.

Kathleen Pulupa:

Well, thank you all very much for participating.

Dorothy Stoltz:

Thank you, Patty. This was superb as I knew it would be and very helpful.

Patty Stine:

Edith, could you tell us what GT and AA stands for?

Edith:

Oh, gifted and talented.

Patty Stine:

Okay. All right. So they might be bored but they just might need extra challenge.

Kathleen Pulupa:

Do you mind putting up the closing slides whenever you have them?

Patty Stine:

Oh, yes, I will do that. I am so sorry.

Kathleen Pulupa:

Wonderful, thank you so much. A big thank you to Patty as well as Dorothy for helping to create such a great presentation and having it run so smoothly. Please connect with us for more information on marylandfamilyengaged.org or connect with the Maryland Family Engaged community on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @mdengageearly. Can you advance to the next slide, please? Wonderful. This is a survey for you guys, so if you don’t mind taking a moment to just reflect on today’s presentation and put in this information, that will be very helpful for us. I’m adding it to the chat as well. Thank you very much for joining us today and please join in the next session too that’ll be starting at 2:00 PM.