TALKING ABOUT BABY’S PLAY

This is a very intriguing subject because babies do not yet have organized speech to express their desires and experiences. How do we know what kind of play is best for babies if they don’t tell us? Observation and knowledge are the keys to understanding how babies play and what they need for rich and […]

Play and Empathy – What is the Relationship between Them

Piaget tells us that young children are egocentric (Piaget, 1932), which means that they cannot take others’ perspectives into consideration when making their own decisions. Young children consider themselves as the center of everything and their desires should be answered quickly. If their desires aren’t met in the way young children feel they should be, […]

My First Experience with The Hundred Languages of Children: Reggio Emília

When I started my work at the Stanford University Child Development Center, I immersed myself further into the studies of educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia and it’s creator Loris Malaguzzi. I came across a way of seeing and understanding childhood that answered questions that I had in the past.  Reggio Emilia is a philosophy of […]

Rough and Tumble play: Why is this kind of play important?

Let’s start this conversation about rough and tumble by being very honest. We (women in most cases) find it very difficult to see children playing rough or playing one on top of the other with ease, whenever we encounter a scene like this, our first reaction is to say something to stop the play or […]

Role of the Adult in a Child’s Play

I have spent much of my time studying open-ended play and observing children playing. During this journey I have been interested in the role of the adult in this dynamic. I agree with Professor Paulo Fochi when he says that adults play an important role in modeling children’s behavior and that this modeling can happen […]

Childhood’s Non-Negotiable Need

Many articles and videos emphasize the importance of playing for child development. We have countless books written to defend this non-negotiable need for childhood and the devastating consequences of its lack. Why should we talk more about this? Let’s find out. I believe that this subject should be explored for two reasons: First, because childhood […]

My mini-story from Stanford 

It was my first day working at the Child development Center at Stanford University. I was observing and interacting with a group of 3 years-old children. I was a little nervous because It was my first “real” job since I came to live in the U.S. and I knew that I had so much to […]