From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our happiness and intelligence throughout our lives. We’ve all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This […]
A leading expert in childhood development makes the case for why self-directed learning – “unschooling” – is the best way to get kids to learn. In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their […]
Efforts to give preschool children a head start on academic skills like reading and mathematics instead rob them of play time both at home and school. Indeed, the scientific evidence suggests that eliminating play from the lives of children is taking preschool education in the wrong direction. This brief but compelling book provides a strong […]
Why is it that the best and brightest of our children are arriving at college too burned out to profit from the smorgasbord of intellectual delights that they are offered? Why is it that some preschools and kindergartens have a majority of children struggling to master cognitive tasks that are inappropriate for their age? Why […]
In Einstein Never Used Flashcards highly credentialed child psychologists, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D., offer a compelling indictment of the growing trend toward accelerated learning. It’s a message that stressed-out parents are craving to hear: Letting tots learn through play is not only okay-it’s better than drilling academics! […]
Roger Caillois’ Man, Play and Games (1961) stands alongside Brian Sutton-Smith’s The Ambiguity of Play (1997) and Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1938) as a touchstone of play theory. In just a few years, today’s children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those their parents and grandparents knew. Even the definition of “career” […]
The Handbook of the Study of Play brings together in two volumes thinkers whose diverse interests at the leading edge of scholarship and practice define the current field. Because play is an activity that humans have shared across time, place, and culture and in their personal developmental timelines—and because this behavior stretches deep into the […]
A best-selling, topically organized child development text, Berk’s Child Development is relied on in classrooms worldwide for its clear, engaging writing style, exceptional cross-cultural and multi-cultural focus, rich examples, and long-standing commitment to presenting the most up-to-date scholarship while also offering students research-based, practical applications that they can relate to their personal and professional lives. […]
“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” was Haeckel’s answer—the wrong one—to the most vexing question of nineteenth-century biology: what is the relationship between individual development (ontogeny) and the evolution of species and lineages (phylogeny)? In this, the first major book on the subject in fifty years, Stephen Jay Gould documents the history of the idea of recapitulation from […]
Forward by Stuart Brown MD This authoritative work brings together leading play therapists to describe state-of-the-art clinical approaches and applications. The book explains major theoretical frameworks and summarizes the contemporary play therapy research base, including compelling findings from neuroscience. Contributors present effective strategies for treating children struggling with such problems as trauma, maltreatment, attachment difficulties, […]
Donald Hebb’s “The Organization of Behaviour: A Neuropsychological Theory” has been one of the most influential books in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. In this seminal work, Hebb proposed biological explanations of behavior and processes relating to the mind; most notably, Hebb’s Rule 1, also known as “Theory of Hebbian Learning.” Rule 1 says […]
Original version published in 1898. Groos identified play activity as practice for developing the skills and competencies that would enable “higher animals” to master the tasks of life. He also wrote at length about “imitative play” in humans, whereby children expanded on the behaviors of adults. Interestingly, Groos suggested that you could determine how different […]
This expanded second edition carries forward the initial insights into the biological and existential significances of animation by taking contemporary research findings in cognitive science and philosophy and in neuroscience into critical and constructive account. It first takes affectivity as its focal point, elucidating it within both an enactive and qualitative affective-kinetic dynamic. It follows […]
Poor design and wasted funding characterize today’s American playgrounds. A range of factors―including a litigious culture, overzealous safety guidelines, and an ethos of risk aversion―have created uniform and unimaginative playgrounds. These spaces fail to nurture the development of children or promote playgrounds as an active component in enlivening community space. Solomon’s book demonstrates how to […]
The role of play in human development has long been the subject of controversy. Despite being championed by many of the foremost scholars of the twentieth century, play has been dogged by underrepresentation and marginalization in literature across the scientific disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play marks the first attempt to exxamine […]
NIFP includes this book because temperament is an important component of play nature; it is one of the influences that alters play nature. Temperament varies with environment and time; according to Kagan 50% of temperament is fixed so it is not an unalterable aspect of play nature. The blend of temperament and environment shape one’s […]
The handbook is composed of chapters by authors who discuss the important features of particular types of toys, provide information related to the developmental importance of this type of toy, discuss social and cultural issues engendered by play with such toys, and review the available research on the characteristics and potential impact on children’s developmental […]
This book presents the wealth of scientific evidence that our personality emerges from evolved primary emotions shared by all mammals. Yes, your dog feels love—and many other things too. These subcortically generated emotions bias our actions, alter our perceptions, guide our learning, provide the basis for our thoughts and memories, and become regulated over the […]
Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Yet the thing we call “parenting” is a surprisingly new invention. In the past thirty years, the concept of parenting and the multibillion-dollar industry surrounding it have transformed child care into obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented labor intended to create a particular kind of […]
Play takes up much of the time budget of young children, and many animals, but its importance in development remains contested. This comprehensive collection brings together multidisciplinary and developmental perspectives on the forms and functions of play in animals, children in different societies, and through the lifespan. The Cambridge Handbook of Play covers the evolution […]
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The Institute wants the world to know:
A) Playing, being playful, is the healthiest way to spend your time (after feeding and housing yourself).
B) The activities that evoke playful feelings are unique to each of us.
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