Lesson 3 - Learning to Play Together: A Toy Shark

0:01 - [Jelica] "Learning to Play Together: A Toy Shark."
0:06 Let's demonstrate a role-play.
0:08 In this scenario, you are a child who wants to know where an object is.
0:12 And I'm an adult who gives you the object.
0:20 In this demonstration, we are not in co-presence and the actions we demonstrate withhold information necessary for you to learn where things come from.
0:29 Engaging in co-presence allows your child to develop an understanding of the world around them.
0:35 In order for a child to learn to do something, like eating for example, they need to feel someone else doing it.
0:42 So when we are drinking in co-presence, we engage reciprocally, each feeling how the other takes a drink in turn.
0:49 As the child feels me, they learn how I drink.
0:52 And as I feel the child, I learn how they drink.
0:55 I can feel how they're holding their cup, how quickly they are tipping it back, how much liquid they ingest by how big they swallow, and if they're taking little sips or a huge gulp.
1:05 And they can feel the same when I drink.
1:08 I encourage them to feel my hands and my cheeks and my movements, just like I felt theirs, so we can share the experience.
1:17 I feel them swallow, and they feel me swallow.
1:20 From this reciprocity and co-presence, the child understands their own actions in the context of others.
1:26 As you touch your child to get information about them, through touch, they learn how to do the same.
1:31 Through repeated sharing of tactile information on a daily basis, your child will learn the things people do.
1:37 Children are extremely curious, repeatedly asking,
1:40 "What are you doing," over and over again.
1:45 Any explanation you can give them pales in comparison to you including them in your activity.
1:53 In co-presence, we engage with them in shared experience.
2:00 Okay, are you ready for this toy?
2:03 To add, when I bend down,
2:05 I touch the child's hand to my head, so they know where I'm getting the toy from while developing reciprocal body awareness.
2:14 That way they know what my body is doing and that I'm ducking my head down.
2:20 The alternative would be me holding them away from my activity and movement.
2:25 In that case, the child has no idea where the toy came from or how I got my hands on it.
2:30 They learned nothing.
2:33 This doesn't mean that I should describe my activity to them after the action has been completed.
2:38 Instead, I simply place the child's hand on my head and bring their hand with me as I pick up the object.
2:46 We got the toy together in co-presence.
2:49 The child can feel where I found the toy and knows where my head is, so we don't bump into each other as I bend down.
2:57 With that, we can begin to explore this shark toy.
3:01 I present the toy to the child and let the child feel it while staying in touch.
3:06 I don't just drop the toy in their lap and withdraw my hands because this does not offer co-presence.
3:13 They can't feel that I'm attending to them, and we aren't sharing a common experience.
3:17 I need to keep my hands on theirs, feeling them as they discover and play with the toy.
3:22 This way, we can call certain parts of the toy to one another's attention and feel them reciprocally.
3:27 I point out the button on the shark's fin with a press of my finger and then move our focus to the shark's mouth.
3:31 I touch the child's hand there and open and close the mouth softly with both of our fingers inside.
3:36 Then I move my hand back to their hand, which is resting on the button, and press it again.
3:40 Then to the mouth, so the child feels the association between the press of the button and the opening of the shark's mouth.
3:45 When a child makes that connection, I feel it and offer encouraging feedback, which gives the child my feelings of enthusiasm at their discovery.
3:52 It's laughter, which can also be felt by bringing the back of the child's hand in contact with my throat from underneath.
4:00 Now, let's demonstrate the child playing with a toy too roughly.
4:04 Go ahead and bring the toy up to my face, as a child might, and I'll respond to correct the misbehavior.
4:12 Notice as the child brings a toy to my face,
4:15 I immediately give them negative feedback on their chest while grasping the toy in their hand at my face.
4:23 I call attention to the location of my face by bringing their other hand up to touch it.
4:29 I then bring the toy to the face of the child so they can feel the location on themselves
and tell them, "No."
4:34 I want to be sure the child understands the right and wrong ways to play with the toy.
4:38 As we play with the toy again,
4:40 I offer positive reinforcement that they're playing in the right way.
4:43 I then contrast this by reminding them that toys should not be brought to the face
by tapping their chest and then touching their face and saying, "No."
4:50 Then, immediately we engage in play the right way, and I give additional positive reinforcement.
4:55 I then redirect them back to the button by pressing it with the child's thumb
before moving to the mouth to touch it with the child as it opens and closes.
5:02 The child has trapped my thumb in the shark's mouth and thinks it's funny.
5:06 I playfully trap the child in my hands, sharing my feeling of playful excitement,
and the child laughs.
5:11 My fingers move back and forth on their leg to show that I'm laughing too.
5:15 Now, notice that as we are seated touching one another in co-presence, we can feel each other's movements and responses, making the play even more lively.
5:24 The child can feel suspense building and/or tension rising as my finger was stuck and as I moved toward them in play.
5:30 Take turns touching and feeling each other.
5:32 Touch the toy together.
5:33 Never grabbed your child's hand and force it onto the toy.
5:36 Instead, take the time to feel how the child is initiating play with the object.
5:41 Feel them as they touch different parts of it and invite them to explore other parts
by calling attention to it.
5:46 Here, we both have discovered a hatch that opens to a compartment inside.
5:50 I might say to them, "Oh, do you feel that?
5:52 You could sit in there, and the shark will bite bite bite you."
5:56 And then give the child little nibbles that describe the feeling of the shark's mouth closing, like it did on our fingers.
6:02 As we play, the child tells me their finger was stuck in the hatch.
6:05 I can then immediately respond by saying,
6:06 "Oh no, I'm so sorry.
6:08 Here, let me feel it and give it kisses.
6:10 All better now?"
6:11 And we return to exploring the toy together.
6:15 Next, we discover that there are wheels underneath the toy.
6:18 As we realize this, I roll the toy against the child's legs so they can feel the movement,
then encourage them to do the same on my leg.
6:32 Now I describe the movement we both just felt from the toy, first with my hand on the child's hand and then on their leg where we had initially rolled the toy, then up their arm.
6:42 I then offer my arm to the child to perform the activity I just described to them.
6:47 When they do this,
6:48 I offer playful feedback that communicates my emotions as the shark comes toward me.
6:52 This way, the child can feel my playful apprehension as I respond to their actions and play.
6:57 This strong backchanneling conveys my emotional responses as I stay connected in co-presence with the child.
7:02 They are encouraged by feeling my playful responses.
7:06 Co-presence and backchanneling are part of the whole cohesive experience.
7:10 Co-presence lets the child know that others are understanding their actions and allows you and the child to attend to the same actions and details as they unfold.
7:18 Then comes backchanneling as I respond immediately to the action we both just felt
and the shark bite on the face.
7:23 Now imagine if we were sitting slightly apart, like this, and our legs were not touching.
7:28 As the child explores a toy on their own,
7:30 I might reach in to give tactile feedback, but because of this disconnect, the child has no frame of reference for the feedback because they don't know which part of play
that I'm responding to.
7:40 Without that context, it feels disjointed because we aren't sharing an experience together
through touch, right?
7:46 How did that feel?
7:48 Yeah, it felt like your hands were just coming out of nowhere.
7:50 It felt odd because we didn't have a solid connection.
7:58 Right, and that kind of fleeting contact is not co-presence.
8:02 That kind of touch limits a child's learning because it lacks in specificity.
8:06 The child can't feel exactly what it is that they did that's right or wrong in particular.
8:10 By contrast, when you establish yourselves in co-presence, then you can feel things that happen and how others respond to them, whether by excitement, playful energy, giddiness,
a feeling of shark teeth bites, laughter, the action of the shark, its wheels.
8:25 Feeling everything together as it occurs.
8:28 As you play together, you can begin to tell a story like, "Uh-oh, here it comes.
8:33 It's gonna bite you.
8:34 It's gonna get you."
8:36 And then there's that opportunity for laughter and connection between you.
8:40 This is an example of the power of co-presence.