Pretend Play and it's Importance #BlogchatterA2Z

As kids, all of us took bedsheets and made a tent out of it and had our picnic inside the tent or had a tea party for our dolls and other stuffed animals. This is called “ Pretend Play “. 

Pretend Play is a loosely structured form of play where kids make believe a situation and play. In simple terms it is like role play.

Many times you would have noticed that your child pretends to be a doctor. He gives you medicines or gives you an injection saying that you are not well.

It is essential for a child’s overall development. The importance of Pretend Play is listed below :

·        Creativity :

Pretend Play helps to bring out a child’s creativity. He imagines and makes the scenario as interesting as he can. It is a boost to his imagination as it gives him an area to explore and imagine whatever he wants to imagine. It also gives them the power to explore the adult world.

·        Vocabulary :

Pretend Play helps in improving a child’s vocabulary. The child learns to talk more, use different words . You will notice that your child will come up with different phrases or words which we had no idea that he knew.

·        Social Skills :

When a child enacts different roles, he gets into the shoes of many characters and learns on his own how to behave and respond to many situations.

·        Boosts Confidence :

Pretend Play is very important for kids who are shy. When a child enacts the role of someone else, he imagines and has conversations. This also boosts his confident when he goes and meets different people.

·        Problem Solving skills and Logical reasoning :

When a child enacts a particular situation, he himself comes up with a solution. This also improves his logical reasoning and problem solving skills for a lot of other things in life.

  

·        Relaxes and Unwinds :

Pretend Play also helps a child to calm himself. All of us need to relax and unwind. A child also needs to do the same. But most of the times, he is not able to express himself. Pretend play helps to calm him down. If he is tired or in a bad mood, let him be with his toys or his room for sometime. By pretending to be someone else and imagining the whole scenario will relax him and calm him down.

Some ideas for kids Pretend Play are :

·        Traffic Scene

·        Picnic

·        Doctor and Patient

·        Teacher and student

·        Child pretending to be a parent.

·        Child shopping at the super market.

·        Child enacting as an animal.

·        He recreates stories which he has listened

·        Cooking or Baking

Does your child like Pretend play ? Do share in comments about his favourite Pretend Play .