Daniel is a 9 year old who is also described as being active, curious and eager

Question

Daniel is a 9 year old who is also described as being active, curious and eager to please He lives in a rural setting, and doesn’t have access to a school. He is expected to get up early, and help with the farm chores, and if there are not too many things to be done, his mother teaches him. His father says it is very good he has such a high energy level as there is so much to do. His mother says she loves his curiosity, because he is easy to teach. He looks forward to the sessions with his mother, as he finds them interesting and a break from the hard work. 1. How would the concept of the developmental niche relate to the difference in the way these two boys are adapting to their environments?

Explanation / Answer

Although young children around the world spend time at play, radical differences in how their everyday lives are organised lead to important differences in their play. Such differences are based on each culture’s values and practical realities, including the centrality of play in children’s lives, how play is understood by caregivers, the kind of play partners and contexts available, and children’s motivations for play (Göncü et al., 2000; Gaskins, in press). For young children growing up in North America and Europe, play is often considered their primary ‘occupation’. But in other cultures, helping with family chores is given greater significance, and play is considered a secondary activity occurring alongside work or after work is done. If play is seen as the primary medium for learning cognitive, social, and emotional lessons, limiting play opportunities seems clearly undesirable. But such lessons may also be learned through collaborating in, or observing, the work of adults (Gaskins et al., 2007). Play’s value reflects the meaning that caregivers ascribe to it, their beliefs about children’s development and learning and their role in everyday life. Ethnographic studies show that depending on particular cultural beliefs of a society, caregivers can ‘cultivate‘, ‘accept‘, or ‘curtail’ play (Gaskins et al., 2007). The cultural organisation of children’s social worlds also determines whom they play with. Playing with parents, siblings, same-aged peers, or alone provides very different opportunities for children to control the play and engage in social exchanges. Playing at home under adult supervision, outside in an unsupervised group, or in an institutional setting also leads to different experiences (Lancy, 1996). And play may become a more important resource for children’s emotional regulation when children both play a lot and are under higher levels of stress (Gaskins and Miller, 2009). Recognising these cultural differences helps us to understand the potential impacts of play on children’s development. This issue cannot be adequately addressed when play is conceptualised as simply a universal behaviour for all children. Recognising its cultural foundations is central to understanding the complexity of children’s play,

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