What is cooperative play

When Does It Happen, and How Can You Encourage It?

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

What Are the Stages of Play?

In 1932, sociologist Mildren Parten identified six stages of children’s play. All kids develop differently, so there are no set ages for each type of play.

Unoccupied play. This is the first stage and prepares your baby for the others. Unoccupied play happens when your child experiences the world through their senses. They explore the world around them without any sort of organization. You may notice your baby picking up an object and chewing on it before throwing it down and moving on to another one.

Solitary play. Your child is engaging in solitary play when they play on their own without paying attention to others. Your child is exploring, mastering new skills, and preparing to play with others.

Onlooker play. You may think your child is feeling lonely or left out if you notice them sitting back and watching other children. But your child is learning a lot by watching during this stage. This is a normal part of play development. Your child is learning about social rules and relationships as well as different ways of playing.

‌Parallel play. When your child is playing near another child but not with them, they're engaging in parallel play. There is no interaction. At this stage, your child is still getting ready to play with other children. They’re still practicing skills and building up to cooperative play. ‌

Associative play. This is when your child starts to show interest in other children as playmates. They’re starting to practice what they've learned in the earlier stages of play. Children in this stage may all be playing in the same area and interacting with each other. But they aren't organizing their play around a common goal. ‌

Cooperative play. In this final stage, your child is working with other kids toward a shared goal. Children will have rules about how to play and assigned roles. There may be a lot of arguing as they learn to share, take turns, and negotiate.

Benefits of Cooperative Play

Play is an essential part of your child's healthy development. Some of the benefits of cooperative play include:

Improved language skills
Improved attention
Self-regulation
Better peer relationships
Learning to work with peers
Adapting to the needs of others
Learning to compromise
Learning to resolve conflicts
Improved physical development
Developing problem-solving skills

How to Encourage Cooperative Play

Getting your child to play cooperatively isn't always easy. The key to success is giving each child a role so they have to work together. Here are some tips for encouraging cooperative play at home: ‌

Plant a garden. Let your child and their siblings or friends plan a small garden. They'll have to work together to decide what to plant and where to plant it. Encourage them to take on different roles. Be sure to point out everyone's contribution when the plants start growing.

Create an animal hospital. Let your children drag out all of their stuffed animals and set up a veterinary clinic. Give them a clipboard, paper, and crayons to add writing practice to their game. The children can take turns being the veterinarian, the pet owner, the receptionist, and maybe even the pet. ‌

Put on a play. Bring out the dress-up clothes and let your kids put on a play. They can act out a classic fairy tale or their favorite modern book. Deciding who plays which role will give them lots of practice in negotiating and cooperating. ‌

Have a parade. Making their own musical instruments will give your kids a chance to practice their creativity. Marching in a parade with their instruments will encourage them to work with their friends toward a common goal.

What Is Cooperative Play? Definition, Examples, and Benefits

As children grow, they move through distinct developmental stages that impact how they interact with the world and the people around them. While parents are often quick to note developmental milestones like learning to sit up or sleeping through the night, there are also important social milestones your child will move through.

One such milestone is reaching the cooperative stage of play. If you’re interested in learning more about the stages of play, read on!

Cooperative play is the last of the six stages of play described by sociologist Mildred Parten. Cooperative play involves children playing and working with others towards a common goal or purpose.

Being able to participate in cooperative play is extremely important. It means that your child has the skills they’ll need later to collaborate and cooperate at school and in other typical social settings, like sports.

Cooperative play doesn’t happen overnight though. Before your child reaches this stage, you should expect to see them move through five earlier stages of play.

Unoccupied play

Unoccupied play, the first stage, is when an infant begins to experience the world through their senses. They move their body and interact with objects simply because it’s interesting or because it feels good.

At this stage, your little one enjoys things with interesting textures and patterns or items that they can touch or see.

Solitary play

After unoccupied play, children move into the independent or solitary play stage. During this stage, a child will play on their own with little to no regard to what other adults or kids around them are doing.

During this stage, your child might stack and knock over blocks, line up or move around objects, flip through a book, or enjoy shaking a noise maker or other similar toy.

Onlooker play

During the onlooker play stage children will observe the play of other kids while not actually playing themselves. Motivated by an intense curiosity, little ones might sit and observe others for long periods of time without trying to jump in and play.

During this stage your child is observing how play “works” and learning the skills they’ll need to jump in when they feel ready.

Parallel play

After mastering onlooker play, a child will be ready to move into parallel play. During parallel play, children will play beside and in proximity to other children without actually playing with them. Children often enjoy the buzz that comes with being around other kids, but they don’t yet know how to step into others’ games or ask other kids to step into their games.

You may feel awkward when you head to a playdate and it seems like your child ignores the other children, but often they’re just engaging in an earlier play stage like this one.

Associative play

The final stage of play prior to cooperative play is associative play. During associative play, children will play with one another but don’t organize their play toward a common goal. Kids might be talking, laughing, and playing together but have totally different ideas about the outcome of the game they’re each playing.

Your child and their friends may all be playing a game that involves cooking, but one may be a chef, one may be a daddy cooking dinner, and one may be making a snack for their dinosaur.

Cooperative play

Finally, after lots of practice communicating and collaborating, a child moves into the final stage of play, cooperative play.

You will notice your child has moved on to cooperative play when they can communicate desired outcomes with others and collaborate towards a common goal with each person having a distinct role to play.

While every child is different and will move through the stages of play at a different pace, in general, kids begin to engage in cooperative play between the ages of 4 and 5.

The ability to play cooperatively depends on your child’s ability to learn and exchange ideas and assign and accept roles in their play. Typically, children under 4 are not yet ready to share their toys for the sake of a game, to respect the property rights of other children, or to understand the importance of rules and bounds within a game.

You can encourage cooperative play by example. Play games that require taking turns, discuss assigning roles within play, and encourage communication and feedback.

Cooperative play allows children to work together towards a common goal instead of in opposition to one another or in pursuit of winning. Parents and caregivers can foster cooperative play by creating an environment with tools and games kids can use to work cooperatively.

Outdoors, children can work together to rake leaves, build a snow fort, or plant and tend to a garden. Children can also collaborate to use playground equipment or outside toys in a way that ensures that everyone gets the opportunity to play, like rotating between the slide, the swings, and the monkey bars.

Indoors, children can construct buildings and cities from boxes or blocks together or use figurines and dolls to act out shared stories. Children can also recreate scenarios they see in their everyday life, such as playing grocery store, doctor’s office, or veterinarian.

At this stage, children may also begin to enjoy more organized card or board games that allow them to work towards a common goal or point total. They may also enjoy collaborative work like building a puzzle together or painting a mural.

Encouraging your child to participate in cooperative play is important for fostering their long term social development. During cooperative play they can learn and develop a number of life skills that will help them get along with others and move through the world successfully.

During cooperative play children learn:

Cooperation

Cooperation is an essential life skill that children will use at home, at school, and in the community as they grow.

Play that fosters a sense of cooperation in kids shows them that working together allows them to have more fun and more readily reach their goal than working or playing independently.

Communication

During cooperative play children must express their needs and desires as well as hear and respect the needs and desires of others. Kids learn that if they don’t communicate or listen effectively, their play simply won’t be as fun.

As kids continue to grow and develop, they refine their communication skills through play and carry these skills into different parts of their lives.

Empathy

During cooperative play kids each have a distinct role to play in their game. As kids negotiate rules and roles, they learn that they must think from the perspective of others to ensure that the game is “fair” for all.

This recognition that different people experience the same situations differently is one of the earliest forms of empathy.

Trust

During cooperative play children assign one another roles to play and rules to follow and then must trust that everyone will comply. Children learn to value one another’s strengths and contributions and to trust that they’ll each participate in the agreed upon way.

Conflict resolution

Reaching the cooperative stage of play does not mean that children will never experience conflict when they play, in fact, playing cooperatively often creates bountiful opportunities for little ones to practice their budding conflict resolution skills.

As conflict arises, children must learn to effectively communicate the problem and to brainstorm compromises and solutions that are acceptable and workable for all parties involved.

Cooperative play is the final stage of play and represents your child’s ability to collaborate and cooperate with other children towards a common goal.

Children often reach the cooperative stage of play between 4 and 5 years of age after they have moved through the earlier five stages of play. You can foster cooperative play by setting up your home environment in a way that gives your child the tools and toys they need to create cooperative games.

Children learn through play and, as they play cooperatively with other kids, your child will learn essential life skills that they’ll use now and as they grow!

What are cooperative games and how they develop your child's brain

Board games are a great way to have fun with the whole family. And this is not just entertainment: such games train the reaction of the child, help him make decisions quickly and make his brain work. Among all board games, cooperative ones stand out - those in which participants do not compete with each other, but play against the game itself. Together with the Prostoye Rules publishing house, we have compiled a selection of cooperative games that your child will be delighted with.

Daria Ermakova, director of the design studio of board games "Simple Rules"

Cooperative games teach to communicate and negotiate. With peers and older children, even with parents. Children begin to think broader, going beyond personal interests. So small and independent, they are aware of the need for communication. And most importantly, team leisure is gaining popularity: sports, board games, games. After all, with their help, one can approach the solution of the eternal problem: should children succumb or let them get used to defeat?

If you want to teach them to listen to more experienced people, remember that there is a much wiser way - to try to solve the problem together. It's also just great when you can ask a team player for help.

Karkusha: Little Garden Board Game (3+)

A simple and cute game from the German company HABA for the little ones, in which the players collect fruits from trees. It's very hard to lose! Karkusha climbed into the garden, and on the way to her nest, she wants to pick more juicy fruits. The task of the players is to get ahead of Karkusha and prevent her from devastating the garden!

Wonderpony board game (4+)

This children's game is not only about ponies, but also about true friendship. The task of the players is to move the ponies into the corral before the fence closes. Participants will have to join forces, negotiate, share for free and learn to work in a team in order to achieve the common good - victory in the game.

Crafty Fox Board Game (5+)

Developed by the American game studio Gamewright, players have to become detectives and solve a complicated case in this game. The fox has stolen the pie and is running away with it into his hole. The kidnapper must be identified. There are cards with suspects, each has its own signs - someone wears a hat, someone wears pince-nez, someone has a flower. The team must remove suspicion from the innocent and uncover the identity of the Sly Fox before he can cross the field and finally sneak out.

Bandito board game (6+)

Another exciting game for young detectives. The bandit is on the alert and wants to run away. The participants of the game need to join forces to stop him before the cards in the deck run out. If at least one loophole remains by this moment, then the bandit was able to escape - and left everyone with a nose. And if the players managed to block all his paths, then they won the game!

Forbidden Island Board Game (8+)

Gamewright's players will turn into adventurers and go to a distant island that is rapidly sinking into the water. Task: collect four magical artifacts and have time to fly away by helicopter until the island is flooded.

How useful are board games in general and cooperative games in particular for your children? Let's ask a specialist.

Irina Katin-Yartseva, clinical psychologist, game therapist

Board games are a popular type of children's and family leisure, especially now, when children play little yard games, and parents are too tired to invent game plots. This is not only a pleasant pastime together: they greatly contribute to the cognitive development of the child, motivation for learning, the functions of perception, memory, thinking, voluntary attention and control, they teach to respect boundaries and rules. Board games can help to learn skills such as counting, recognizing objects, colors, symbols, they develop categorization, imagination and symbolization - the ability to use substitute symbols for objects (cards, chips), on the basis of which reading and writing are built. It is not for nothing that board games have become an integral tool for the work of neuropsychologists and speech therapists and are actively used in school preparation programs.

In addition, joint games bring parents and children closer, harmonize their relationship, uniting them around joint activities.

Among board games, a separate category stands out - cooperative games, where participants play together against the field and must cooperate efforts. They are distinguished by the absence of a competitive moment and help out families with pronounced rivalry of brothers and sisters, as well as children with unstable self-esteem, who are having a hard time losing to an opponent.

What do children get emotionally from this game?

Contact with peers or family.

Feeling of involvement in a joint process, a sense of responsibility for the overall success.

Skills of interaction, cooperation, mutual assistance.

Joy and pleasure, as well as the opportunity to let off steam, to live in the game those emotions (excitement, anger, triumph, magical power) that cannot be realized in life.

Such games are especially important in the lives of children who are sensitive to evaluation, experiencing difficulties in relationships with family members.

An entertaining co-op game with a vivid story that is not only interesting, but also useful. It's also a great way to have fun with the whole family!

H also read:

These 7 games will make your walk even more useful

5 cool board games that can be played by the whole family

Children and computer games: for 900 Alexandrov2 and against

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Types of cooperative online games - Game designer's cuffs

"And you, Brutus!" - Brutus heard during the collective task "Kill Caesar".

Man is a collective being. From time immemorial, people have united. Whether it's the first campaign against mammoths or the first settlements and communities to protect loved ones, the first campaigns against the enemy, revolutions and world wars. Games are no exception, because playing any game, from "towns" to the Olympics, is more fun together.

In ancient times, when Diablo was played via Dial-Up, connected to the "network" through HyperTerminal, cooperative games were relevant. What can we say about the present time. It has never been easier to keep in touch and play online with millions of people from anywhere in the world.

It would seem that there are many games for every taste and color, however, there are very few cooperative games among them, and their quality often leaves much to be desired (tested by Cuffs!). In this article, we will look at the main types of online co-op games so that you can easily separate the wheat from the chaff and find exactly what you and your friends need.

Definition and a bit of history

So, what do we mean by this word.

Co-op is a mode that allows several players to progress in the game together.

It's that simple! Competitive modes are an exception, they do not apply to co-op, although the game is joint.

Generally speaking, cooperative games appeared quite a long time ago, back in the days when there was neither the Internet, but also a Windows PC on board. Most of these games were on consoles, due to the platform itself, which is ideal for group play, as well as the desire of developers to increase demand for their games. There is even a term for this type of cooperative - hotseat, when people play on the same gaming device. There are a million examples of such games, for example, Pocket Monsters, Chip and Dale, Battletoads and many others (and there are no counting of them on Nintendo at all).

But let's not delve into history, it deserves a separate article and let's leave the local co-op behind the scenes as well. In this article, we will talk about online co-op.

Types of cooperative

For myself, I divide cooperative games into 3 general groups:

Synchronous passage;
Joint assignments;
Free passage.

Simultaneous passage

In this case, it is assumed that the main game campaign can be played synchronously. But how is this different from joint assignments, you ask? And I will answer, indeed, in some games the joint campaign is built through joint tasks (especially in RPG), but we will consider the main difference between these types later.

Here are some examples of games with synchronous play. To date, the list of such games is extremely small (especially those that are really interesting to play). By the way, I usually use https://coop-land.ru/ to search for information about co-op and its type in a particular game. On this resource, all information on the game, types of network modes, and even guides are described in detail. But back to our sheep.

Dead Space 3

One of the few co-op games worthy of the "must play" label. You can write a separate article about the cooperative mechanics of this game.

The first game in the series to have a multiplayer mode and not some kind of deathmatch, but a full-fledged cooperative passage of the game campaign. The highlight of the DS3 co-op is a unique mechanic that I have not personally seen before in any of the games - the division of the environment among players in real time.

It looks like this: two players are walking along the corridor, but suddenly Isaac begins to hallucinate and the whole location changes its appearance, while the second player has everything as before. At the same time, the first player stops in unconsciousness at the second player. At this moment, enemies begin to climb from different sides. Outwardly, it looks extremely funny when the second player has to defend himself in a misunderstanding of what the first one is doing. It is especially comical when the players communicate remotely, because the explanations of what is happening in the first place sound completely absurd and incomprehensible.

F.E.A.R. 3

Like Dead Space, the first co-op game in the lineup. Here you play as two brothers, one of whom is either dead or something like that.

Notable in the passage of this game is that the two brothers use different combat mechanics. The first is a classic shooter: weapons, grenades, pew pew, that's it. And the second telepath and ghost, respectively, he deals with enemies differently, slows down time, moves through objects and so on, in general - magic. Naturally, it cannot do without mutual assistance, and if one brother starts to be killed, and the second one does not have time to come to his aid, then that’s it, “game over man, game over!”.

However, nothing remarkable except for the joint passage of F.E.A.R. 3 does not represent itself. If you want to relax your spinal cord with a friend, then this game is for you.

Resident Evil 5

When my friend and I started playing the fifth part for the first time, we couldn't put it down. This is one of the best co-op games ever.

In the fifth part you play two characters - the main characters. Each has its own peculiarity. For example, Chris is a tank, and Sheva is a DD 😀 but the main feature of the series is the joint interaction during the passage.

Cooperative game mechanics were not limited to mutual assistance at death. Firstly, one character cannot go further than another due to specially created barriers. Secondly, the characters often split up, one attacking, the other exploring. For example, Chris puts Sheva in the opening and now they have different locations and different tasks, Chris fight off a bunch of enemies, while Sheva beat the mini-boss and press the button (the simplest example). Thirdly, the mechanics of mutual assistance are harmoniously intertwined with QTE. All these mechanics lead to different game situations and make the game really interesting.

Joint tasks

So, the main difference from the joint passage is that the progress of the players in such a game can be non-synchronous. In addition to this, the missions may not be combined into the story campaign at all.

Any MMORPG

An excellent example, though generalized. There is no need to go through the game campaign together, you can safely do it alone or separately. The progress of the players is not synchronized in any way, except when the players themselves want to play exclusively together (with the exception of events, raids, etc.).

In general, the gameplay experience in an MMO is closer to a sandbox due to a certain degree of freedom. Therefore, I attribute this genre to a game with joint missions, which, in turn, can be combined into a story campaign.

StarCraft 2

Very interesting co-op mode. In this example, it can be called a reference, since so far I have not seen anything like it in RTS (and how many of them are left?).

This is a set of missions in which players work together to complete assigned tasks, such as stopping the Zerg invasion by capturing certain points and gaining strength. They are not united in the story campaign and are completely independent of each other. Passing them gives experience and other goodies in the SC2 meta. All the more reason to try to play, since SC2 has become free-to-play.

Borderlands

Another example in this category. Here is just the story campaign, and RPG and co-op, BUT!

The essence is that the Borderlands campaign is based on the passage of joint missions. And this is an additional example that perfectly demonstrates the difference from the synchronous passage - it is not necessary that the players have the same progress. They can even be of different levels! You will pass those missions on which the server (host) stopped. It is for this reason that I attribute the game to this type.

Free Roam

Perhaps the most difficult type of co-op for developers, however, I like it the most. This type of co-op is found in sandbox games. Games in this genre should have breadth, depth and a ton of content! If any of this is missing, such a game simply will not be played, which is especially true for a cooperative.

The biggest difficulty of this genre is that if there is content, the gameplay is completely user driven, that is, if there is functionality, the player sets goals for himself, achieves them and moves towards new ones. Not everyone can and wants to entertain themselves with the tools provided by the developers! But it is precisely for this reason that I like this genre more than others, and with the above requirements, playing in a co-op becomes especially interesting.

Minecraft

Perhaps the most striking example. Everything is here: crafting, research, fights in both PVE and PVP, building and even tasks!

The game is also a great example of user generated content and user driven story. firstly, the tasks are created by the players themselves, and secondly, they often contain interesting story arcs. After all, the volume of opportunities in the game allows you to create tricky plot weaves and more.

Life is Feudal

This is the hardest game I've ever played, EVER. And it's just divine!

This is where you can turn around in full. The first thing that attracted me was the wide possibilities. You can build your own village, settlement and even a real castle! An extensive system of skills and professions encourages a collective game, because it will not work to cover everything at once in “one sting”, and it’s more fun together. Various combat classes: archer, swordsman, spearman, cavalryman, etc. - bring variety and variability to the combat system.

Creation of guilds and wars for territory, trade, politics, alliances, 100 vs 100 buhurts - all this and much more in the medieval world. In fact, the possibilities in the game are limited only by the imagination of the players. And the developed social part only helps them with user-driven gameplay - from raids on caravans and blood feuds to tournaments and real weddings.

Starbound

Another great example of both free-roaming and sandboxing. A million content, features and co-op!

Here you can find tasks and exploration of various procedurally generated planets, and battles, and craft, and construction, both underground and above ground, and into space, and into ANOTHER UNIVERSE! In general, you can play it for a very, very long time. Given the fact that the aforementioned generator, due to the abundance of content, generates very interesting worlds with different biomes and the creatures inhabiting them, it is especially interesting to play.

It's clear that playing such a deep game in terms of content is more fun together! We even raised the server, by the way, for money.

If you have read up to this sentence, now you know what types I share online cooperative games.