Joseph M. Strayhorn

Plays That Model Psychological Skills Joseph M. Strayhorn

Young children learn psychological skills largely by imitation learning. With the help of this book and some widely available toy people, a teacher, tutor, parent, or caregiver can model positive patterns for young children by putting on plays for them. The characters in the plays demonstrate positive patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought. The adult reads the play, gets the script in mind, and acts it out with toy people for the child audience. Or, the adult and child read the play together, decide who will play each part, and act out the play jointly. These plays are often a useful prelude to spontaneous joint dramatic play. If positive, psychologically healthy patterns become a part of a child's dramatic play repertoire, the child can learn to do an immense amount of fantasy rehearsal of those patterns while the child is "only" playing.