Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/infants-dont-pretend-do-they/5009955/
Babies are like flowers in a number of ways - lovely to look at, requiring nourishment, often sweet smelling, and both, of course, show processes of growth. Caring for babies is hard work which has its special pleasures - one of which is watching them grow. Sometimes growth and learning seem so automatic in very young children that it is difficult to remember that children don't grow quite like flowers. Unlike flowers, babies learn by interacting with the world of objects and the world of other people.Even though we know how quickly and how much infants learn, when observing four year olds in the house corner, it is difficult to believe that their elaborate play skills had roots in much earlier, simpler activities. But give-and-take rules and the ability to pretend grow out of babies' first social smiles. The sophisticated pouring and stirring has roots in the way that babies reach for and grab objects. In fact, psychologists can now point out a number of milestones that are gradually reached and passed as babies first learn to play and later to pretend.
Learning to Play with Objects
From the first hours of life, infants react to their ...