As a child care provider, you likely spend a good amount of time engaging in or supervising imaginative play with the kids in your care. Whether there are costumes and appropriate props, or found items reimagined as tools to support the scene, it can be so fun to watch them role-play and create scenarios on their own. You know this time spent is valuable, but if you’re looking to explain the benefits of pretend play more confidently to the families you work with, here are a few key points.
Introspection
Pretend play helps kids to learn about themselves and their environment. This is a no-pressure opportunity to talk through their likes and dislikes, abilities, and interests. Kids may also use pretend play to introduce new ideas and feelings in this safe space.
Role Play/Rehearsal
Pretend play allows kids to recreate scary or confusing situations and try to work through them. These situations could be upcoming or recurring, and role-playing will familiarize the kid(s) with the circumstance and make them feel more prepared for future instances.
Social Development
Pretend play with peers cultivates social development, encouraging concepts like compromise, delayed gratification, expressing themselves, delegating or dividing responsibility, and synthesizing ideas. These are complex social skills and higher-order thinking skills that will be necessary through adulthood.
Emotional Intelligence
Pretend play fosters social and emotional intelligence, with concepts like reading social cues from their peers, regulating their own emotions, taking turns, and staying committed to the activity. These skills are learned through interaction and taught through experience.
Skill Synthesis
Pretend play empowers kids to synthesize different skills and areas of knowledge. In simulating real-life experiences, the cycle of play may involve concepts from counting and sorting, to comprehension, to socialization and teamwork. Running a store, being first responders, and a trip to the doctor’s office all require several different areas of knowledge coming together to enact the experience.
Many times kids will get into pretend play without any assistance, but there are some ways that you, as a caregiver, can encourage these sorts of play cycles.
Create a Story
Storytime is a fun childhood staple, but what if you begin a story and let the kids decide what happens next or how things end? You could also go back and change an event in the story, to see how that alters the ending. Explore hypotheticals and see where that takes the story.
Prop Boxes
Creating a prop box with materials along a theme can inspire dramatic play. Maybe you have cooking utensils or construction tools or even office supplies! You learn quickly which items kids are familiar with and which they’d like to explore further.
Get Out the Dolls
Get out the dolls and puppets and talk through scenarios. Ask questions about what the doll is thinking, feeling, or what they like and dislike. As long as you take that concentrated time, pretend play is a great way to spend time relating to and learning from your littles.
Don’t be afraid to tell your boss parents you created a grocery store or went on a mission to space for your activity that day. In fact, add “Pretend Play Pundit” to your Sittercity profile and enjoy explaining to families what exactly you mean by that. Imaginative play is more beneficial than you realize, especially between the ages of two and seven. Allowing time for this pretend play throughout your day as a caregiver is not only beneficial but necessary to several important developmental concepts.
