The book is based on the work of the famous British pediatrician, child development specialist Mary Sheridan. Her work is devoted to spontaneous play in early childhood. The UK Department of Health published the book in 1977. Since then, it has been reprinted dozens of times. This is the third edition of the book, psychologists Justin Howard and Don Alderson adapted it for the modern reader and supplemented it with the results of the latest scientific research.

Mary Sheridan believes that the ability to play spontaneously, without adult guidance, is the most important skill for children. Games should become more complex as they grow older. And if this does not happen, parents have a reason to think and observe their child to understand whether he or she is developing correctly.

The authors describe popular theories of the origin of games, provide different classifications of games, and explain in detail at what age which skills are formed with the help of games. This book is a classic for parents, teachers and pediatricians. It also pays much attention to working with children with mental and physical disabilities.

Parents pay much more attention to learning through play than to developing the child's ability to play. An adult, seeing that the child does not participate in games, should ask himself whether the child knows how to play? How to help him with difficulties in movement, perception and coordination in order to develop his ability to play?

Why read
You will learn:

How children's games become more complex with age and what parents need to pay attention to in order to ensure that their child develops harmoniously and correctly.
How cultural characteristics affect the games of children from different countries.
How children from poor families invent toys for themselves practically out of nothing and how this helps their development.