Pretend play helps to promote your child’s social interaction skills, emotional maturation, speech-language skill practice, and cognitive processing, and awareness of self and their surroundings. Children learn to express themselves, their thoughts, and feelings through pretend play. In addition, pretend play lets your child “try out” different roles, behaviors, and lets them put their creative thought and imagination into hands-on play practice.
A child may begin with pretending to do an everyday task or activity, then move on to including their stuffed animals, dolls, or other figures into their play time. They may be able to express their thoughts, fears, anxiety, imagination, and practice new skills through pretend play.
Pretend play can be guided through providing the materials to spark imagination as well as providing the safety of letting the child explore and pretend role-play in a safe, familiar environment. If the child will allow you to participate in their created world, let them lead the way and direct you in they are able. Being able to develop their own skill and success with pretend play will hopefully expand to interaction and play with others where ideas and imagination become shared and combined.
For children with fears or who display sensory overload in certain situations, pretend play may be a way to help them work through what may happen, give them a feeling of some control in practice, and help to desensitize them to specific situations (like visiting the doctor, or going out shopping, or eating out). Pretend play can be an invaluable learning experience for all children.
