Peaceable Life Publications

Tandem Play is a skill building strategy that incorporates teaching concepts like modeling and scaffolding to teach children social skills through play. It is a wonderful way to work with children on self-regulation, sharing, following directions, and modeling how to treat others.

Tandem Play is not just playing with the child, it is an intentional time of instructional and modeled interaction.

It can be done with kids at any age, with one child at a time, or in a group of siblings or classmates. It is also a super helpful strategy for children with a neurodiversity, such as ADHD or autism.

The basic framework of Tandem Play is this:

1. The parent/caregiver engages the child in a short game or activity.
   
2. This game or activity is NOT a typical or frequent activity or game that the child does by themselves or has access to all the time. For example it would not be pretend play with their cooking set that they have out for free play all the time.
   
3. This game or activity is parent/caregiver led, meaning that the parent/caregiver gives the instructions for the game or activity.
   
4. The game or activity should be simple, fun, with quick turn taking time frames. It can be active, like toss across, or more tactile, like building with Legos.
   
5. The game or activity should be team oriented or turn taking oriented. For example a simple board game or matching game with few rules makes a great game for Tandem Play. Building with Legos can be a team participation game, everyone adding to the build in their own way. A craft can be the activity if it is simple and team oriented, so every participant is making one craft together and having to take turns with building, finding pieces, gluing, etc.
   
6. The game or activity does not have to be finished and does not have to have a clear winner. So, if you choose a board game for 15 minutes and pick Candy Land, you can stop at 15 minutes and note who was where on the path, maybe noting things unrelated to “winning or losing” such as who had the most red cards and who stepped on the most image cards, who went backwards the most and who got the most double colors.
   
7. The parent/caregiver should have a plan before starting the game or activity. All the pieces or materials should be gathered, the space for play cleared, and all other distractions, including the TV and the parent’s/caregiver’s phone should be off or elsewhere.
   
8. The goal of the activity or game is to teach social skills and self-regulation. So, in an activity like playing Candy Land, the parent/caregiver will instruct on taking turns, letting the player who has the turn be the one to touch the board, giving suggestions on how to manage frustration if getting sent back in the game, practicing counting out the spaces properly, and general game play. The parent/caregiver will also model how the child should interact with the game and the other players by encouraging and being excited about the other players progress and taking a set back with laughter and lightheartedness.
   
9. The time spent doing the game or activity is equal to the attention span of the youngest child participating in the game or activity. So if you are having Tandem Play with one child, it is based on their age and attention span. If you are having Tandem Play with siblings, it would be based on the age and attention span of the youngest. 10 minute Tandem Play is just as effective as 1 hour of Tandem Play, so it does not have to be a long event. You want this to be a positive experience so they look forward to practicing these skills again. For younger kids or kids who have neurodiversities and have difficulty staying engaged, 10 to 15 minutes is perfect. For older kids, 30 minutes is plenty.
   
10. Tandem Play should be done daily for the same period of time. It does not have to be the same activity, and actually, switching activities helps the child to generalize the skills outside of that Tandem Play time. It also does not have to be at the same time of day. But in order for a skill to be developed it has to be practiced regularly. So having Tandem Play for about 10 or 15 minutes a day every day can help the child gain mastery over these skills.
    
11. Skills practiced during Tandem Play can be highlighted throughout the rest of the day. For example, siblings who are learning to patiently wait their turn during tandem play can talk about that same skill while waiting to wash their hands for dinner or getting game time on the game system.

I use Tandem Play for social skill building and self-regulation in therapy and I teach my families to use it at home.

I also use it to address many challenges that families face, such as hostile sibling dynamics, parent/child attachment healing, relationship building during fostering or blending family, and more. HOW it is used in a therapeutic intervention may be a little different depending on what the goals of the Tandem Play, and is best done with a professional, but the description here is the base foundation of the Tandem Play strategy from which interventions can be built.

I plan to post videos talking through some Tandem Play examples and how I would use this strategy in different situations.

I’d love to hear how you have used this strategy with your family.

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