There’s No ‘Right’ Way To Play With Your Kids

Playtime is everything for toddlers. Not only is it fun, but it’s also how they begin to understand the world, explore their emotions, build confidence, develop new skills and navigate social relationships. Even the most mundane of tasks like eating lunch or brushing teeth can be turned into an opportunity to have fun and engage with the world in a new way.

However, while toddlers can easily turn any activity into play, it doesn’t always come quite so naturally to us adults. As the first person in my family and friendship group to have a baby, I was surprised (but also somewhat relieved) to see that I wasn’t alone in not knowing how to play with my child. With the breakdown of the proverbial village that pitches in to help raise children, many of us don’t get a lot of exposure to babies before we find ourselves holding one of our own. 

A year and a half and loads of late-night research later, I realise that playing with my toddler can be anything and everything. It’s singing, running, reading, bird watching, bubble blowing, counting, climbing, hiding, stacking, sorting, splashing, swinging and packing things away. There are no specific rules you have to adhere to and if you ever get stuck, observing how your child likes to play is a great place to start. 

Experts recommend free, unstructured play for toddlers -- which is essentially what they do when left to their own devices. The idea is that, provided they’re in a safe environment, there’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to play. Every bit of ‘free play’ is a learning experience, whether that’s sorting spoons from the dishwasher, pretending your laundry basket is a pirate ship or using bricks to build a tower. Toddlers learn best when they’re engaged in something they’re interested in, so free play is all about letting them be the master of their playtime, choosing what they want to explore and engage in, and giving them the freedom to express themselves in their own unique way. 

LEGO DUPLO is all about free play as toddlers can use the bricks for all sorts of things, with endless possibilities to explore. Toddlers can sort the bricks into colour groups, put them in a container and shake them to create music, or just put them in and take them out of a box, not to mention all the things they can build. DUPLO, which is LEGO’s younger sibling, has bigger bricks specifically made for smaller hands to help young toddlers build confidence. Through trial and error, they learn perseverance and build resilience, plus, the colourful characters and accessories invite their imagination to run free, expressing their individuality and creating their very own worlds. 

It may not seem immediately obvious, but this kind of free, unstructured play is great for building emotional intelligence. Giving toddlers the space to make decisions about what they want to play with and how to play with it, gives them a feeling of control and independence which helps build self-confidence. Parents can further boost the learning experience by joining in and following their toddler’s lead. It seems like a simple enough thing to do, but as a parent, I’ve found it a little trickier to implement. It turns out that it actually takes a lot of restraint to put your own ideas aside and match your toddler’s way of playing.

I keep catching myself trying to give my 18-month-old ideas for what to do with certain objects or drawing her attention to similar things; essentially bringing my own preconceived ideas of what play should look like, rather than giving her the space to show me what play looks like for her. Instead, the concept of child-led play recommends that we watch what our toddler is interested in and follow their lead, mirroring what they’re doing and matching their pace. We can comment on the activity as we go, but the aim is to try and not intervene to change or direct the way that they’re playing.

When parents show interest and enjoyment in what our children are doing, it gives them a sense of importance and self-worth. Engaging in their play is also great for fostering resilience as it presents toddlers with challenges to overcome, and opens windows for adults to help them identify, express and manage the emotions that arise, which Beyond Blue recommends for building resilience in children. For example, when we see our toddler come up against something challenging in their play, it gives us the opportunity to talk them through it instead of jumping in to solve it.

We can acknowledge that the task is difficult and support them to give it a go, putting the emphasis on persistence and effort rather than achievement to help foster the motivation to keep trying even when the going gets tough. Another example is tackling big emotions that can come up while playing, like frustration. When we’re joining in on the play, we can acknowledge emotions when they bubble up and help our children to identify them in the moment by labelling them and giving them the words they need to express themselves. 

While child-led play is all about letting them decide how they want to play, we need to provide our children with access to different environments and developmentally-appropriate items and toys to engage with. Almost anything can be used for this kind of play as long as it’s safe, including random things around your house like cushions, hats, water bottles and colanders. In terms of toys, it’s good to have a balance between toys that involve finding a solution, like a puzzle or blocks that slot in different-shaped holes; and toys that invite open-ended play.