Excerpt: At age five or six the child begins to construct objects and things according to preconceived plans and patterns. Provided the right materials are available the child can have optimal opportunity to develop his creative and constructive abilities. Constructive play is important to the child’s creative abilities and to the development of achievement motivation. Children who possess the creative potential but who lack the relevant materials may suffer dissatisfaction and stunting of their creative and motivational growth. They may also lose or not properly develop the sense of initiative and feelings of satisfaction that can be derived from engaging in constructive activities and completing challenging tasks. The child’s life is not all playful physical activity. In this society a good deal of the child’s time may be spent reading, looking through picture books, playing various sit-down games, playing with various toys and enjoying various spectator events such as t.v., movies, listening to the radio. Besides these activities the child likes to be read or told stories to. All of these activities influence the child’s behavior and development in numerous and complex ways. How much time the child spends in the various types of play activities are a function of socioeconomic, sociocultural factors as well as his own personal inclination and the number of play activities available to him. Social class to a degree determines what games will catch a growing child’s fancy as well as to what types of play activities will generally not be available to him. It is well known that social class influences the kind of books the child reads, what he listens to on the radio, looks at on t.v., sees in the movies or theatre, the types of organizations he joins or helps form. Not only the quality of such activities are to a degree socioeconomically and sociolculturally determined but so is the quantity of such activities determined by these factors. For instance, lower class children engage in less cultural activities, organized group activities, community supported activities such as music, art, dramatics, boys or girls clubs, scouting, etc., than their middle class counterparts. The lower class child will generally have less space to play in and fewer toys and games to play with. The Developmental Psychology of The Black Child Amos N. Wilson
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:02:50 +0000
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