Define onlooker play
Meaning, Age Range, Examples, and More
Your child is standing on the sidelines, watching the other kids play. Seems like they’re just looking on, right?
Wrong. Onlooker play is an important developmental stage. It’s not just child’s play — it’s serious business.
Sociologist Mildred Parten divided play into six stages. At each of these stages, your child develops cognitive and social skills that form the foundation for future successful interaction with others. And it happens even when they’re just watching.
Jean Piaget defined the different stages of play primarily by the cognitive developmental stages that a child reaches. Parten saw things a little differently. She emphasized that learning to play is very much about learning how to relate to others.
Here’s a quick look at Parten’s six stages of play:
- Unoccupied play. Your child isn’t playing yet — just watching or standing in one spot and sometimes making random movements.
- Solitary play. Your child is fully focused on their own activity and unaware of other children around them.
- Onlooker play. Your child watches and even comments on other kids playing but doesn’t join in.
- Parallel play. At this bridging stage, children play alongside each other, but remain in their separate worlds.
- Associative play. Children interact with each other, but the activities aren’t coordinated.
- Cooperative play. Around kindergarten age, playtime becomes well-organized and the children have assigned roles.
Don’t hold a stopwatch because we aren’t all programmed to run on the same timetable. But as a rule of thumb, you can expect onlooker play to begin when your toddler reaches between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 years of age.
If your heart breaks because you see your child standing on the edge, watching quietly as the other kids play, don’t reach for your tissues.
Celebrate — your toddler has reached another milestone. Remember those previous play dates when your child wasn’t even aware that there were other kids in the room.
Onlooker play is a big part of a child’s development. While your child may seem passive when they’re just watching, they’re actually pretty busy working on cognitive and social-emotional skills.
Cognitive skills
Observation sharpens perception, attention, memory, and thinking. By noticing how gestures and words are used, kids are laying the groundwork for the more complex symbols (writing and math) that they will learn in school.
Social-emotional skills
In his famous Bobo doll experiments, Albert Bandura, hailed as the father of the cognitive theory, showed that kids learn how to behave from observing others. It’s a one-way street: Watch, assimilate, and then imitate.
Need more convincing? Psychologist Lev Vygotsky says that observation “refines the natural state of behavior of the child and alters completely anew the whole course of his development.
” Observation teaches some important lessons including:
- The rules of engagement.Observation teaches kids how to cooperate with other kids, how to listen to the rules, and how to better rein in their own impulses. They realize that sticking to the structure of play is worth it — they get more pleasure from the game than from satisfying an immediate impulse.
- Different strokes for different folks. Some children are naturally more reserved. Researchers call these kids slow-to-warm-up. They gain the most from onlooker play. As they watch other kids at play, they learn. Armed with this knowledge, they gain the self-confidence needed to move on to the next stage of play.
Your toddler loves watching other children at play. But at this early stage, they’re more interested in watching quietly from the sidelines than in directly participating. Here’s what you’ll notice at the onlooker stage:
- Your toddler sits or stands near other children who are playing, but doesn’t get involved.
- They may stay within earshot so that they can keep tabs on what’s going on.
- They may talk to other kids, ask questions, and give suggestions, but no more.
- In Montessori classrooms, kids typically range from 2 1/2 to 6 years of age. It’s common to see the younger children watching the older children play from a safe distance.
- Remember that slower-to-warm-up child? This child feels safe watching from a distance but may throw in a suggestion when they get a chance.
- Sports’ spectators are also engaged in onlooker play — some good things never come to an end!
We all want to help our kids reach important milestones. And, to be totally honest, it hurts when you see your kid on the sidelines — even when you know that this developmental stage will soon pass. So, what can you do to nudge the onlookers onto the next stage? Here are some great ideas:
- Be on hand when your child plays to offer support and care. Researchers recommend switching off your phone when you’re with your child.
When you take part in the game, onlookers are more likely to take part as well. - Give your toddler the opportunity to role play. Build a collection of hats, scarves, purses, shoes, blankets, dishes, broken phones, keyboards, and anything else you’re tempted to toss out. Store the props on low shelves and in open tubs so that your child can pick and choose easily. When you play with your toddler, or invite a friend for a play date, the props give them a starting point for play.
- You can grease the wheels of successful play with open-ended questions like, “Is it time to feed the baby?” or “How can you build the farm?”
- Play dates can stretch your nerves, because playing with others is a learning curve. Expect squabbles and, when they occur, referee calmly — the kids are doing what kids do.
- Have you recently installed an air conditioner or a bought a new appliance? Keep the box they come in and make a house. Go ahead and crawl inside, and your toddler will likely do the same.
When your toddler reaches 3 1/2 to 4 years of age, they’ll probably move on to the next stage of developmental play — parallel play. At this stage, you’ll see your child actually playing next to other kids, but not yet playing together. The kids will probably share their resources, but they won’t have a common goal.
You may notice that your child and their friend are playing with blocks, but they’ll each build their own tower. Stay on hand in case they start to squabble over the blocks! The kids might have a blast with your costume box, but they likely won’t assign roles.
What happens when you notice that your child hasn’t moved on to the onlooker play stage? Maybe they’re still fully engaged in the solitary play stage and don’t show any interest in what the other kids around them are doing.
Breathe easy… it happens. The guidelines for the age ranges of the play stages are simply guidelines. Up to 15 percent of kids are slower to warm up. These kids may be shy or super-cautious.
And a heads up: Sometimes even though a child has mastered parallel or associative play, they may still slip back to the onlooker stage. That’s perfectly normal. Don’t you also have days when you’re perfectly happy to sit back and watch the world pass by?
That said, if you have any concerns about your child’s development, reach out to your pediatrician.
Your child is growing up. As their cognitive, communication, and social-emotional skills come together, you’ll notice that the onlooker play has morphed into parallel and then associative play. Watch out, because soon they’ll be asking for the car keys!
Age, Benefits, Examples & How To Encourage It
Onlooker play helps your child mature into a well-rounded individual.
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Onlooker play is one of the six different stages of children’s participation in play, as Dr. Mildred Parten Newhall described. Onlooker play is characterized by the child being more engrossed in watching others play instead of participating themselves. You may encourage your child to play with others, but they refuse to participate and prefer only to watch. They have fun observing others play, It is not unusual for parents to worry about their child losing interest in interacting with peers as they do not show interest in joining them for the play. Read this post to learn what onlooker play is and how it impacts children’s development as we explain in more depth with the help of some examples.
Does this scenario seem familiar to you?
If yes, you may have just witnessed an episode of onlooker play. You might worry that your child is losing interest in social interactions because they are not actively involved in the play.
However, this may not be the case.
In this post, we talk about what onlooker play is, discuss some onlooker play examples, and tell you how it impacts your child’s development.
Related: 9 Useful Tips To Enhance Social-Emotional Development In Babies
What Is Onlooker Play?
In 1932, sociologist Dr. Mildred Parten Newhall conducted a series of studies for her dissertation and developed a system for classifying the stages of a child’s play that are crucial for your child’s social development.
According to Parten, there are six stages of social play that a child goes through, starting right from birth. As they experience each stage, they develop the social skills required to play with other children (1).
Onlooker play is one of the six stages. It is when a child watches and observes other children playing but does not participate in the play. This stage is essential as the child observes and learns from their surroundings. It is generally considered a preparatory phase for children to learn social interaction skills.
Let us now understand in brief what the six stages of social play are (2):
- Unoccupied play:This stage takes place from birth to three months of age. The baby moves their arms and legs and finds out how each part of their body moves.
- Independent play: This type of play begins from birth and lasts for two years. The child prefers playing alone and is not interested in playing with other children yet.
- Onlooker play: Also called spectator play, during this stage, the child observes other children playing but does not join them.
- Parallel play: This stage happens after the child turns two. In this stage, the child plays alongside others but does not participate in their play.
- Associative play: This stage happens at around three years of age and continues till the child is four. In this stage, the child interacts with others during play but without the aim of achieving a common goal.
You will also notice very little interaction and a lack of organization.
- Cooperative play: This stage occurs after the child turns four. The child develops an active interest in the activities of other children and participates in them. You will also notice cooperation, organization, and teamwork.
It is important to note that although the stages are described for children in the age group of 0–5, each child grows at their own pace, and they may not necessarily align strictly with the ages mentioned above.
Examples Of Onlooker Play Activities
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Onlooker play doesn’t require any special set-up. It is an ongoing process that happens organically when your child is in the vicinity of same-aged or older children. If your child likes what they see, they will stop what they are doing and watch what others are doing. They will soak in new experiences by observing the activities of others around them.
Here are a few examples of onlooker play activities:
- Younger children in kindergarten watching the activities of older children
- Children who are slightly shy throwing in sudden suggestions in an activity they weren’t involved in
- A toddler observing the use of various pieces of play equipment in a play area
- Your child watching other children pretend play or dress-up
- Your child watching a children’s choir or play attentively
Related: 22 Learning Activities And Games For Your 7-Month-Old Baby
When Does Onlooker Play Begin?
Onlooker play usually occurs around two years of age and continues for up to six months or one year. Usually, independent play and onlooker play happen simultaneously.
During this stage, it might seem that your child is missing out on social interactions and physical play. However, onlooker play is a milestone in terms of your child’s social development. Even if your child does not participate in the play, they are observing and taking mental notes.
They notice not only how games are played, but also how different people interact with each other.
Why Is Onlooker Play Important?
Onlooker play is a crucial and beneficial stage in a child’s development. Even if the child seems passive and inactive when watching others play, their various brain functions are busily employed. It also helps develop their cognitive and social-emotional skills.
Cognitive skills
Watching others improves a child’s observation, perception, attention, and memory skills. They are also learning new words and more complex behaviors, such as gestures, which establish order in the play.
Social-emotional skills
Children learn by observing others. In the initial years, it is the primary caregiver, usually the mother. As they grow, their social circle increases, and they start observing other children to imbibe their characteristics. They try to imitate the mannerisms of the people they like and later try them out.
For children who are shy and reserved, onlooker play is a way to gain more experience without actually engaging with them. These children may benefit the most from onlooker play.
Positives Of Onlooker Play
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There are many positives of onlooker play. It could help your child
- Gain knowledge
- Observe interactions among other children
- Develop self-confidence
- Learn to cooperate with other children
- Develop their cognitive and social skills
- Develop their memory and deductive skills
Related: 10 Cognitive Activities For Infants To Boost Development
How To Encourage Your Child During Onlooker Play?
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Parents always want their children to achieve the right milestones successfully. When you see your child watching others and not engaging with them, you might feel uneasy and emotional. But you have to remember that onlooker play is a crucial developmental stage, and your baby will soon transition to the next stage.
There are a few things that you can do to make the transition of your child to the next stage easy and smooth:
- Offer support to your child: When at the play area, switch off your phone and keenly observe what the child is doing. In some cases, if you participate in an activity or a game, it is more likely that your child will participate in it too.
- Encourage role play: Assemble a collection of old towels, toys, etc., in a place where your toddler can get their hands on whenever they want. Role play can help improve the imaginative and cognitive skills of your
- Arrange playdates: Playing with children of a similar age could be a great learning experience for your They can also see adults (parents or babysitters) interacting with each other and learn social skills.
- Offer open-ended toys: Instead of giving them specific toys, give them open-ended toys, such as empty cartons or wooden blocks to play with.
These toys can help them develop their imaginative and deductive skills, encourage freethinking, and improve their motor skills.
When Does Onlooker Play End?
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When your child reaches 3–3 ½ years, they will move on to the next stage of play, that is, parallel play. In the parallel play stage, you will notice your child playing with other children. They might still not actively engage in play, but they will prefer playing alongside other children. They might probably share their toys, but they will play independently and won’t play to achieve a common goal.
When Should You Worry About Your Child’s Development?
Image: Shutterstock
If you feel your child hasn’t reached the onlooker play stage despite having reached an adequate age, there is no need to panic. They might be engaged in solitary play and may not notice what is happening around them. Some children can be quite reserved at a young age and slow in achieving their developmental milestones.
These children might take some time to move on to the onlooker play stage (3).
If you have any concerns about your child’s development, do not hesitate to contact your pediatrician.
Related: 16 Important Developmental Milestones In Baby’s First Year
What Can You Expect Next?
As your child’s cognitive and social-emotional skills develop, they will slowly transition into parallel play and then move on to associative play. Each stage comes with its own set of knowledge and learning, so be prepared to handle your child’s independence.
Every child has to achieve several developmental milestones while growing up. These milestones are important for your child’s mental, physical, social, and emotional development.
Onlooker play is beneficial for children in multiple ways. However, you must know the right age to introduce it as it involves certain skills to be put to use. This play encourages motor development and allows the child to learn more about their social behavior.
Thus, they must have the exposure and knowledge required so that they seek all the benefits that it has to offer. Once they understand the play, they can have fun around with their friends.
Key Pointers
- The onlooker play is one of the six stages of play and prepares children for social interaction.
- Although it may seem concerning to a parent, the onlooker play is an important stage in development.
- The transition from onlooker play to the next stage happens gradually. Arranging playdates or encouraging role play could assist this progress.
References:
MomJunction's articles are written after analyzing the research works of expert authors and institutions. Our references consist of resources established by authorities in their respective fields. You can learn more about the authenticity of the information we present in our editorial policy.
1. How Kids Learn to Play: 6 Stages of Play Development; Pathways
2.
The Power of Play – Part 1: Stages of Play; Michigan State University
3. Importance of Play in Children’s Development; Pathways
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Instrumental games in the theater
Before talking about what kind of games we develop and perform at the Novosibirsk Academic Globus Theater and how they are related to performances, we need to define what we mean by the word "game".
Games can be conditionally divided into two types - it seems convenient to designate them in English: performance and game. And here we must plunge into the culture of Ancient Greece, which laid the foundations for many types of human activity. And there we will see that next to performance there will be mimesis (or mimesis, (ancient Greek μίμησις - similarity, reproduction, imitation) - imitation of the art of reality.), and next to game - agon (ancient Greek ἀγών - any wrestling or competition among the Greeks and Romans; games during religious or political festivals.). Theater is a performance based, as we all understand, on mimesis.
But when we write about games here, we mean exactly game, that is, in our opinion, a real game is always based on agony, competition, game conflict. For example: chess, football, hide and seek. At the same time, the conflict can manifest itself in varying degrees, more harshly or more gently.
A game is a special language of communication. One can easily imagine people speaking different languages but playing chess. And exchanging moves, they communicate through the game, understand each other. At the same time, they are aware of each other as subjects of action, because everything that happens on the chessboard depends on them. Each action of one depends on the action of the other and at the same time affects the actions of the other.
In this subjectivity, games differ from quizzes, even such high-quality ones as QUIZ and “What? Where? When?". The structure of the quiz is no different from the exam. If the participant (team) knows, then he will answer, if not, then no.
In QUIZ and “What? Where? When?" you can try to guess something based on the text of the question, but then the quiz becomes a little closer to the puzzle, but not to the game, since there is no interaction with the opponent. And most importantly, we see that in the quiz there is no freedom of choice for the player, unlike a real game. The participant of the quiz has no different options for action, no freedom. He is not a subject, he just has to answer correctly, find the answer, which is laid down by the author of the quiz. In addition, the form and structure of the quiz is in no way connected with a specific performance, does not depend on it. That is, it is not individual in form, in structure, but only in content, in specific content. By the way, the same applies to the shortcomings of quests, which in everything except the movement of participants, are similar to a quiz. The quiz also has advantages: a lot of people can take part in it at the same time, it can have interesting questions.
And the quest can be theatrical, and as a result of this - spectacular.
The game is developed individually, to solve a specific problem. This is reflected in its form, structure and content. For example, it can model concepts, phenomena, processes, problems that are significant for a particular educational course or cultural program. In the theater, we can also highlight certain ideas, features of the theatrical language of the performance, the structure of its artistic world, elements of its sign-symbolic system, which we want to offer the viewer to master during the game. And we must develop the game in such a way that the viewer forms his own understanding of the performance. Moreover, mastering and understanding the performance, if such a game is possible, will occur through the spectator-player's own active action, including at the level of active understanding of ongoing processes, and not only through detached analysis. The player in this game is the subject of the action, he has a choice between actions.
There is no action that can be guaranteed in advance to be determined as the most correct, the most powerful. The only drawback of the game is that the more complex the mechanics, the more difficult it is to work with a large number of players. Our games, which we made in the V-Agon Games Lab, can include up to 35 people in most cases.
The main challenge for us was this: can there be a play based on a play, given that the play is already a play? Can there be game according to performance, agon according to mimesis? And it's important that we didn't want to create an RPG. She, in our opinion, will lose to the performance itself, since the theater does almost the same thing on stage, but better.
The first test for us was the musical "Tom Sawyer" (Director Anna Zinovieva). What should be highlighted in the performance? What is important for making a game? The peculiarity of this story is that a European boy reads books and, based on them, invents adventures for his company.
Actually, this became the basis for the structure of the project theater game "Adventure" (adventure). Several teams participate in it, each of them, based on the selected book, comes up with a trip to a certain place. And then they take turns advertising their trip, without naming a specific place and the chosen book. Teams earn points when they guess the places and books of rivals, as well as receive them for their advertising from other players, moreover, individually, if they wanted to go on the proposed trip. In this way, the structure of the performance scrolls through the play. And by the way, there is hope that the players will be able to transfer this model of action to their own lives, that is, they will learn to use in real life what happened to them in the game. The spectator in this case, through the position of the player, learns to be a subject, an author, and not a consumer.
Let's talk briefly about a few examples of theatrical game development. Spectators of the play "King Matt" (Director Polina Struzhkova) were able to participate in the game "Dialogue of Civilizations".
In this game, each team becomes a representative of a space civilization, and then the players themselves decide what features it will have, with whom they will be friends, with whom they will fight. For elementary school children, the game "Catcher of Heroes" was developed for the play "Deniska's Stories" (Director Alexei Kriklyvy). In this game, the main focus of the players is on understanding the characteristics of the characters. Such an understanding is useful for children, especially at this age, both as viewers, and as readers, and as subjects of society. These few experiments have shown that a variety of performances can be comprehended through instrumental playing and this provides opportunities that are not found in other formats. (We will summarize these possibilities at the end of the article.)
But a new challenge arose – Theater Day. Last year, the theater held a theatrical QUIZ, at that time it had its own advantages: a well-known, fashionable format, many players can participate, simple mechanics.
But during the discussion of the plan of the Theater Day, some doubts arose: they had already held it, I don’t want to repeat it, all the more so the spectators who participated in the last meeting can come. And that means new questions are needed. Well, all those shortcomings of the quiz that we talked about earlier were updated. And we set ourselves a difficult task: to come up with a new game about the theater as a whole, in which questions are not needed, many players can participate, and an additional point is that the audience should get a new experience, including communication with theater artists. And then we developed the mysterious team game "Duelium", in which teams come up with riddles, in compliance with all the properties of this cultural genre. In them, the abstract theatrical concept is hidden behind a specific theatrical subject and vice versa. And then there are duels between the teams, in which the shot is a mystery. Up to 120 people can participate in this game, the presence of a theater artist in each team was a bonus for the audience.
So we were able to make a new game that works to gain knowledge about the theater and to understand the art of the theater. In it, players are subjects, communication, teamwork and creativity develop.
To summarize. What gives us the game in the theater?
- comprehension of the performance through individual game mechanics;
- embedding the viewer in a dynamic structure based on the play;
- transferring the viewer to a subjective position in relation to the performance and culture in general;
- reflection of the viewer's experience and the possibility of extending the results of reflection to the real life of a person.
............................................... ................................................. .................................Mikhail Moiseev ,
.................................... ................................Head of the department of creative projects of the NAMT "Globus",
.
............. ................................................. .................Deputy head of the laboratory of games "V-agon".
20 questions from the game “What? Where? When?” that brought viewers money
November 4, 2021 Relaxation
Sometimes six smart people at the table are not enough to give the right answer. Try to find the clue and see if you could lead the team to victory.
1. Poster
Whom did they choose to portray on the poster against racism because they are white, black and Asian at the same time?
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2. Remnants of education
"They are designed to make us more comfortable with the random and useless remnants of our education." What did Chuck Palahniuk say?
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3. Quarrel
Complete Konstantin Melikhan's aphorism: “When a husband and wife do not want to hear each other, they…”.
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4.
An empty book In 1874, Professor Robert Kedzie came up with the idea of a book, on the pages of which there was not a single word. The book was sent to 100 Michigan libraries. Anyone could use it, but subject to certain conditions. What was the book "Shadows of the Walls of Death"?
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5. Growing up
Complete the thought of the Polish publicist Janusz Wasilkowski: “The more memories you have, the less space is left for…”.
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6. Fish coin
In Turkmen, a coin is “tenge”, and a fish is “balyk”. What do Turkmens call “balyk-tenge”?
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7. Treat
For enemies she has a sword, and for friends - something that you have to guess. What is this?
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8. Birds
Complete the haiku: "Spilling rice in the yard is also a sin - birds .
..".
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9. Evaluation
For a smart woman, they serve to evaluate men, and for a stupid woman, for self-esteem. What is this about?
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10. Drama
Maxim Gorky said that you can't make a comedy in which people laugh all the time, because laughter destroys the next comic episode. You cannot make a drama that would consist of only heartbreaking pieces. A person needs rest for experiences. What did Maxim Gorky compare a well-written play to?
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11. Green jaguar
What did the Maya call the sun on which the green jaguar sits and drinks blood?
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step. These incidents led the state to legislate against carrying ice cream in your back pocket. What was the purpose of this trick?
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13.
Keyhole What did the American writer Stephen King call the biggest keyhole in the history of mankind?
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14. Proverb
Complete the proverb: “I'd rather be where my wife thinks than where she represents me…”.
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15. Adam and Eve
In 18th century London, a unicorn horn was hung over a pharmacy, a bucket of nails over a hardware store. And above which shop were Adam and Eve depicted?
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16. Sunny days
What, according to ancient Arabic wisdom, gives rise to continuous sunny days?
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17. Sleep
In 2012, British scientists found out what wakes women and what wakes men. In second place in the ranking of irritants for women is dripping water from a tap, and for men, the howling of the wind. In third place - the noise in the street and the buzzing of flies, respectively.
