Why pretend play is important for child development Pretend play also includes play scenarios where children take on roles and pretend to be someone else, or pretend an object is real (such as a teddy being alive). Even having a cup of tea with a small child is pretend play when you are pretending to drink from an empty cup or blowing on the empty cup because the tea is ‘hot’. Pretending in play is about imposing meaning and going beyond the literal.
These are: 1) children use objects as something else, like the box for a boat 2) they attribute properties to objects like the teddy being ‘sick’ and 3) they pretend objects are there when they are not, such as the big fish or the petrol. Within all the different types of play, pretend play is unique because there are three key thinking skills that children use when they pretend in play. For example, they might be feeding a teddy bear, but the teddy bear is sick and needs a doctor or they might be pushing a truck in the sand pit, but the truck gets a flat tyre and runs out of petrol or they might be sitting in a box with a stick, but the box is a boat and the stick is a fishing line and they have just caught the biggest fish they have ever seen! That is, they impose a meaning on what they are doing that is beyond what can be seen. Essentially pretend play occurs when children imagine something.
There are many ways to describe pretend play.
Pretend play (also called imaginative play, make-believe play, imaginative and symbolic play) is the focus of this website because pretend play is the mature form of play and becomes more noticeable as children develop. As children enjoy playing they also feel good about themselves and learn about their world. Other types of play are: sensory play (eg, play with sand, water, mud), visual perceptual play (eg, playing with puzzles, mazes, card games) and auditory play (eg, listening games, I spy) and pretend play (eg, dressing up, creating play scenes).Īll types of play are important for a child’s development because through play children develop muscle strength and coordination, manipulation skills, looking and listening skills, and thinking skills. Fine motor play is activities using your hands such as threading, drawing, cutting, and turning pages of a book. For example, gross motor play or active play is play using the whole body (or large muscles) and you can see this type of play when children jump, run, roll, skip, climb, throw balls etc. Play is a broad term, and within play there are many types of play.
Alternatively, you may remember times when you played all day long and entered into worlds that were full of adventure and fun. As adults we sometimes forget how to play, or maybe you never played as a child and so playing with your own children is a bit of a mystery.
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