The Benefits of Pretend-Play

Did you know every area of your child’s development can be benefited by pretend play? It is crucial to encourage and participate in your child’s pretend play experiences.

Here are some ways that pretend play engages kiddos in essential life skills, as well as increases their awareness of the world around them.

Social/Emotional Development

Research has found that children who participate in pretend play benefit emotionally and socially. It can increase empathy. Kids show higher levels of compassion because pretend play helps them put themselves in another person’s shoes. They can use pretend play to overcoming fears. Dramatic play experiences can help children learn how to cope with situations that they have anxiety about. A child who is fearful of the doctor may pretend-play in order to become more at ease with a situation that is out of their control. For example, they may pretend their stuffed animal is injured and they are the doctor helping make them feel better. Increased social skills are common with pretend play as the child is essentially creating dialogue. Some of these social skills include identifying and managing their own emotions, reading social cues, cooperation, negotiation and self-control.

Language & Communication Development

Pretend play guides children through the power and importance of language. During pretend play, you may hear a child repeat words and phrases that you, or others have said to them. To strengthen a child’s vocabulary development, play with language and learning using rich, interesting words.

Physical Development

Parents help children develop both fine and gross motor skills by encouraging dramatic play. Kiddos focus on hand-eye coordination and visual skills while playing that will help them learn to read and write.

Cognitive Development

Unstructured pretend play is important for children to develop problem-solving and reasoning skills. Dramatic play encourages children to use their imagination by acting out scenes. These scenes most commonly are situations they have seen or heard. This ability to think creatively is the precursor to their future literacy and math skills.

There are a bunch of ways that you can promote dramatic play at home.

• Effective toys: Provide simple, realistic toys for children to interact with. Play kitchens, dolls, tool benches, shopping carts with pretend food, costumes of different careers and decorated cardboard boxes. Loud, overstimulating toys can actually stifle children’s creativity and imagination.

• Expressing through stuffed animals: Provide dolls and stuffed animals for your child. These toys help children to explore and express their feelings.

• Costumes: Encourage your child to experiment with different costumes and avoid gender roles.

• Be Patient: Perhaps most important, make sure you spend time engaged with your child. While independent play is very important, there is no substitute for the benefit a child gains from interacting with a caregiver.

Young children learn by playing and doing. So, when you see your kiddo riding a pretend playing and being a teacher, grab your notebook and pencil and join in as their student!