Childlore
[1] The subject matter of childlore includes the traditions of children between the ages of about 6 and 15 such as games, riddles, rhymes, jokes, pranks, superstitions, magical practices, wit, lyrics, guile, epithets, nicknames, torments, parody, oral legislation, seasonal customs, tortures, obscenities, codes, etc.
[2] as well as individual activities such as solitary play, daydreaming, fantasies, imaginary friends and heroes, collections, scrapbooks, model worlds, comic reading, mass media interests, dramatizations, stories, art, etc.
The term dates back to the late-18th and early-19th centuries in Britain where most of the earliest nursery rhymes that are known today were recorded in English but eventually spread to other countries.
For generations, many young children have grown up learning and passing on these Mother Goose rhymes as a part of oral tradition, perpetuating the culture of childhood.
[10] In the early 1950s, "The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren" offered considerable insight as the first known publication of ethnographic research in which children themselves were consulted about their beliefs and oral traditions, including songs and rhymes.
Earlier on, hearing nursery rhymes is how children begin to imitate sounds and learn to speak with a broad English vocabulary.
[12] Parents and children can speak and sing nursery rhymes together, and a child will start to imitate the sounds and pronounce the words.
[12] The simple, easily repeatable and satisfying rhythmic patterns appeal to children, which is significant as repetition is essential in language development.
Often, nursery rhymes involve cooperation and/or physical activity with the listener, which can be conducted in larger group settings—so children have the opportunity to work with one another through guided instructions, thus practicing effective and engaged interactions contributing directly to their social development.
Simply participating in these interactions in connections between movement and rhymes can allow children to engage with others, promoting social skills.
Nursery rhymes tend to involve repeated interactions between characters of all ages, genders, shapes, and sizes, so a child develops acceptance and respect for diverse kinds of people.
Hearing nursery rhymes before falling asleep reminds children that they are in a familiar environment, so they feel safe and at peace.
Rhymes such as "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "Jack and Jill" are commonly interpreted as conveying the value of perseverance in the face of obstacles.
[18] The simplicity of isochronic meter allows for this variability in the stressed syllable pattern, so each poem does not have to take the exact same form and can still be easily read in a very similar manner across various cultures.
An example of this pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables can be seen clearly in the style of poems in several languages including English, Chinese, Bengkulu, and Yoruba in Nigeria.
[citation needed] Another significant aspect of nursery rhymes that tends to be fairly standard across cultures is the number of lines that occur in a poem.
