This post by Just Ask Baby originally appeared on Divine Caroline.
As I watched my four-year-old granddaughter, put her doll to bed, I was again reminded of the many ways in which make-believe fosters healthy growth and development. In her make-believe, Heather was not practicing for a later role as a mother. Rather, she was dealing with the fact that she had a new baby sister who was taking a lot of her mother’s and father’s attention. Sometimes children create imaginary companions who can help a child deal with socially unacceptable impulses, or avoid responsibility for certain actions. A child who broke a plate insisted that his imaginary companion, Stevie, had done it. And when children engage in dramatic play and put on adult clothing and adopt adult postures and language, this is not simply imitation. Rather in such play, children are making believe that they have the power and prerogatives of adults that are denied to them as children.
The benefits of make believe go well beyond the therapeutic. Engaging in make believe encourages children to go “beyond the information given,” to conceive of options and not to accept the first idea that is presented to them. Indeed, critical thinking has its roots in make believe play. It encourages creativity as well. Norman Brosterman in his book Inventing Kindergarten makes some fascinating observations. He found that Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian had all attended Froebelian kindergartens. In these kindergartens children create a variety of forms, structures and images with blocks of various kinds, paper cut into geometric patterns, dried peas and toothpicks (the forerunner of tinker toys) and many more materials of this sort. Brosterman found remarkable parallels between what children created in the Froebel kindergarten and the work of the artists who had attended these kindergartens as children.
Read More Here
Loading ...
