don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Completely Revised 4th Edition
Copyright ©1998, 2004, 2006, 2014 by Stevanne Auerbach, Ph.D.
Dr. Toy ® is a trademark of Stevanne Auerbach, © Stevanne Auerbach (1998, 2014). All rights reserved.
[Paperback]
ISBN-13: 978-1-58790-275-8
ISBN-10: 1-58790-275-3
[E-Book]
ISBN-13: 978-1-58790-276-5
ISBN-10: 1-58790-276-1
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2014940917
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Auerbach, Stevanne
Dr. Toy’s smart play smart toys: how to raise a child with a high PQ/Stevanne Auerbach.—1st. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN
1. Play—Psychological aspects. 2. Toys—Psychological aspects.
3. Child development. I. Title
BF717.A94 2004
649'1—dc21
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
REGENT PRESS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation to:
COMMENTS on PLAY & TOYS
Play is not automatic. It is learned. The importance of play for children has been well researched and demonstrated. For example, did you ever consider that play is one of the most important areas of activity in which children engage as they grow and develop? Did you know that play has been shown to contribute positively to a child’s later academic learning? Did you know that play is one of the most important factors in a child’s learning how to interact with other children? Did you know that language development could be enhanced through children’s play? Did you know that the abstract thinking, developed through play, forms a critical basis for a child’s later learning in school, as well as exerting a strong influence into adult life? Have you, as an adult, ever participated in imaging exercises? Did you know that there is a direct relationship between your own childhood play and your ability to image creatively and imaginatively project what should happen within your work organization or within your own family? These linkages become increasingly clear as you use this fine reference book. An entire volume devoted to the many nuances of children’s development as seen from the perspective of children’s play is both timely and very welcome. Throughout her book, Dr. Auerbach describes through many helpful examples, ways to develop and enhance a child’s “Play Quotient.”
— EDGAR KLUGMAN, PHD
Professor, Early Education, Wheelock College
Much more is being learned about play than we would have expected a decade ago. A new period of research on play is underway. The new work begins to suggest why play is the principal business of childhood, the vehicle of improvisation and combination, the first carrier of rule systems through which a world of cultural restraint is substituted for the operation of impulse. If the rule structure of human play and games sensitizes the child to the rules of culture, both generally and in preparation for a particular way of life, then surely play must have some special role in nurturing symbolic activity generally.
— JEROME BRUNER, PHD
Child’s Play
All children learn through active participation, by being involved in a practical way, and by attempting to do something themselves, particularly by using their hands. Montessori put great emphasis on this connection between the brain and movement: Watching the child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes about through his movements, she felt. She believed the process of learning had three parts: the brain, the senses, and the muscles, and that all three must cooperate for learning to take place. To start with, they learn through play, through experimenting with things in the world around them—for example, the idea that water is wet, that it can be hot or cold, that it can be poured from one container into another, as well as lots of other things, will be learned by your baby or child through playing with water in the bathroom or the