Playing “Pretend” has always come naturally to a child, whether it’s cowboys and Indians, soldiers or, nowadays, Iron Man or one of the Avengers. Research conducted over more than 70 years has shown that pretend or make-believe play is a very important part of a child’s cognitive and social development.
Psychologists from New York University, Yale University, and other prestigious learning institutions have shown that pretend play has the following advantages in children from ages two and a half to six or seven:
- Increased usage of language, including things such as subjunctives, adjectives, and different tenses.
- Expression of both positive and negative feelings, as well as the ability to integrate cognition with emotion. Promote positive and happy emotions.
- Developed self-regulation resulting in reduced aggression, civility, empathy, and delay of gratification.
- Opportunity to learn social skills like communication and problem-solving, especially when toys are part of the scenarios. Create without limits.
- Enhancement of the capacity for creativity and cognitive flexibility.
- Greater imaginativeness, enhanced curiosity, and learning skills including math and reading.
The research has also shown, and Joy Kids Universe believes, that parents who tell bedtime stories to their children, or explain natural and social occurrences to them, will encourage them in pretend play. Likewise, parents who participate in school programs designed to teach imaginative play games will find their children with higher academic preparedness, compared with children whose parents did not participate. Improvements were demonstrated even in areas like vocabulary, nature knowledge, general information, and manners.
Schools that encourage, or even tolerate, pretend play are another important source. Schools that do so as part of their regular curriculum, or even during recess, have experienced increased learning skills in preschoolers or early schoolers. Casey Rose learns freely and joyfully each day.
Pretend play gives children the chance to discover for themselves different points of view, ideas and emotions – all of which can become an important part of their lives.
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