Something else I’ve noticed with very young children, usually starting between 18 months and 3 years old, is how much they love pretend play – and how this is often clearly pointed at practicing basic skills. Small children love to imitate what adults around them are doing: pretending to cook, to work on a laptop, to make phone calls, etc. (I’ve seen toddlers who can’t actually talk in sentences yet make “phone calls” and babble into the phone.) At a slightly older age, kids start bringing stories from media they’re exposed to into their pretend play.
My impression is that many mammals do play, and that this is an important learning method, but that human children have much more sophisticated pretend play, which broadens what kinds of skills they can imitate and practice.
Something else I’ve noticed with very young children, usually starting between 18 months and 3 years old, is how much they love pretend play – and how this is often clearly pointed at practicing basic skills. Small children love to imitate what adults around them are doing: pretending to cook, to work on a laptop, to make phone calls, etc. (I’ve seen toddlers who can’t actually talk in sentences yet make “phone calls” and babble into the phone.) At a slightly older age, kids start bringing stories from media they’re exposed to into their pretend play.
My impression is that many mammals do play, and that this is an important learning method, but that human children have much more sophisticated pretend play, which broadens what kinds of skills they can imitate and practice.