The State of Play Activity Among Today’s Preschoolers

The article examines the attributes of play among today’s preschoolers. It discusses typical narratives for play and the level of its development. Data for today’s children is compared with the results of studying children with the same methodology fifty-five years ago. The comparison shows a reduced level of development of narrative role-playing among today’s children, which slows down the full-fledged development of voluntary behavior. The lack of developed narrative role-playing leads to the social and personal underdevelopment of children.