Why Do Toddlers Love to Play Hide and Seek?

by Jana Murphy, author of
The Secret Lives of Toddlers

It all started with a game of peekaboo. You covered your face with a blanket, and your months-old baby knew you were still there and pulled it away. Just like that, the hide-and-seek years had begun.

With widely varying degrees of sophistication, toddlers relish their experiences with hiding and finding. They love to cover their eyes with their fat little hands and “count” haphazardly (“two, three, four, nine, eight!”) before they start seeking. They crouch down in their favorite hiding spot and wait no more than a minute before jumping out to shout “Here I am!” They thrive on the jolt of surprise that comes when they manage to discover you—beaming when they hear the much-anticipated “You found me.”

Hide-and-seek is one of the rare gems of a game that really does grow with your child. At first, they’re just delighted to discover that objects (and people) that go out of sight haven’t disappeared forever. As they get older and smarter, they figure out that they can take the initiative and go find those missing things on their own. Toddlers at different ages have vastly different levels of understanding of the game, but even before they can play it with finesse, they love it.

The reason for toddlers’ affection for hide-and-seek is one of nature’s great provisions for growing children. “Toddlers enjoy the games that help them work on their developing cognitive and social skills. At this age, the activities they like best are the ones they learn the most from,” explains Mark Strauss, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Infant and Toddler Development Center in Pennsylvania. Hide-and-seek helps develop so many different skills, it holds children’s interest for years.

The big three of those skills are your child’s burgeoning sense of his place in his surroundings, an increasingly sophisticated understanding of object permanence (the idea that a missing thing still exists in the world), and the very novel idea to a toddler that other people have thoughts unlike his own.

As adults, we subconsciously make spatial maps of everything we see, explains Dr. Strauss. We observe that the sofa is along the wall, the table is next to the sofa, the chair is in the corner, and so on, but toddlers are just beginning to learn to do this. Hide-and-seek encourages them to pay attention to spatial information, often really thinking about it for the first time.Now That You Know...

Think of hide-and-seek as Geography 101. If you’re one of those people who gets disoriented when you step into the mall, you have some idea of how helpful it is to be able to grasp your geographical place in the world. Playing hide-and-seek with your toddler won’t necessarily make her a master navigator or map-reader as an adult, but it’s a very good start. Hide-and-seek helps him learn about the location of his body relative to his surroundings, what makes up his immediate environment, and the ways he can navigate through his home. Those simple lessons set the stage for more advanced spatial awareness.

Over, under, next to, and on. Hide-and-seek offers the perfect opportunity to teach your toddler words about where things are in relation to one another. By simply keeping a running commentary on a game (“Is Connor under the table? Nope. How about behind the door?”) you give your toddler an insight into the use of all the positional words he’s going to be trying to use on his own very soon.

Get physical. Toddlers learn tremendous amounts about themselves and the world through physical activity. Hide-and-seek is a great jumping off point to encourage your toddler to explore her body’s presence. Give your toddler cardboard boxes to use for hiding spaces, help her hide in the bathtub, a laundry basket or any other safe place that makes her think about the way she physical fits (or doesn’t fit!) into her surroundings.

***********

What does your toddler do that mystifies, frustrates, or delights you? Here's your chance to check out other parents' stories, and share your own experiences of some of your child's "wonderful, terrible, fascinating" behavior. Click here to go to our "Parents Respond!" page.

For more information about toddler behavior, check out the newly released book The Secret Lives of Toddlers: A Parent’s Guide to the Wonderful, Terrible, Fascinating Behavior of Children Ages 1 to 3, by Jana Murphy. With the help of over 30 pediatricians, child development experts, nutritionists, and sleep specialists, Jana’s book explains the reasons behind 52 common toddler behaviors and offers tips on how parents can make the most of the positive, downplay the awful, and enjoy this stage of parenting.

***********

To see other Jana Murphy's other columns, click here.

To contact Jana Murphy, email her at janamurphy@pplplc1.com.

©Jana Murphy, 2004
All rights reserved.