The Self-Respecting Child: Development Through Spontaneous Play

This classic study of the spontaneous play of young children combines vivid and delightful observations with profoundly important insights. Alison Stallibrass, an expert on children's play and the mother of five children, makes clear the importance of uninhibited games and activities, without adult interference, in building a child's skill, judgment, and self-esteem, and shows how to make this kind of play possible in a nursery school, day-care center, or at home.

Helen Alison Stallibrass (nee Scott) grew up in the country, the eldest of five children. In the years before World War II she was a student/assistant to the research staff of the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham, London. The influential program of this family club cum research stations was known internationally as The Peckham Experiment. Mrs. Stallibrass is at present a member of the Executive Committee of the Pioneer Health Center Ltd. which offers a consultative/advisory service and provides information about the Peckham Experiment.

For fourteen years, Mrs. Stallibrass, the mother of five children, ran a pre-school play group in the front room and back garden of her own house. She thus became acquainted with a large number of the neighboring children of all ages and was able to watch them growing over a long period. Her notebooks from these years helped in the writing of this book.