Let your child's imagination flourish through pretend play! It helps build problem-solving, empathy, and social skills, while offering them a chance to explore new perspectives.
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” - Fred Rogers
Key Concepts
- Pretend play supports imagination and creativity, two essential components required for flexible thinking and problem solving.
- Children learn how to access their creativity and imagination by building complex fantasy worlds that have many resemblances to real life (including problems to solve). Eventually, your child can apply these problem solving skills and knowledge to real life situations.
- By practicing what it feels like to be someone else (or experience something else), your child is trying to understand someone else’s perspective. The research tells us that this perspective turn-taking reduces aggression and increases social skills (kindness, empathy, helpfulness).
- Pretend play offers an opportunity for children to imitate the language and communication they are hearing around them.
- Imaginary friends are common (up to 2/3rds of kids!), and can allow a child to be in control, have a companion, and engage in experimentation in a safe and easy way.
What to Try
- Create opportunities for pretend play (offer pots and pans, get/make a pretend cash register or create a dress-up area).
- Give your child privacy during pretend play when they ask for it (and of course, when it is safe) to allow them to reach the full range of their make believe experience. If they want you to, join your child’s imaginary world by asking questions to better understand what they’re doing (note: don’t change the game! Join their game).
- Use and encourage pretend play as a way to act out scenarios that are challenging or scary (start of school or camp, new sibling, how to behave in a new setting, etc.). This can help your child work through something hard in a more approachable way.