Imaginative Play

Remember when you were a kid and could spend all day in the woods behind your house pretending to be cowboys or Indians or dragons? All you needed was a stick and a few rocks for an afternoon of fun? Well, I’ve been reading a lot lately about children with imaginary friends and children that tend to “tell stories” and children who engaging in imaginative play.

My son Will, who is almost three, has at least one imaginary friend MeMe who drives a red race car to our house sometimes. Now MeMe has a friend who visits us in a big truck on occasion as well. This goes along with Will’s affinity for telling us rather colorful and dramatic stories, often using his hands for emphasis on the important points. Like the story he told us about how he had to be careful about bees in hives because they could sting us and “that would be berry bad” as he swing his arms around on the bad point. Or the story about the dark storm clouds coming because it is going to rain and thunder. The emphasis here was on thunder with his arms, like a conductor.

While on one hand I might want to tone down Will’s stories for fear he will become like the boy who cried wolf, on the other hand I want to encourage them for the imagination factor. Though lately I have been amazed that he does seem to know the difference between these stories and what is real, as he tells me “I’m just pretending Mommy” when I question something that happened. What can I say, I’m a writer. My imagination is a bit off the charts most days.

But I have to say that the advent of the imaginative play at home with Will has been a lot of fun. Hearing the stories he comes up with and then asking him questions and getting the most amazing, and sometimes funny, responses is one of those times I’m sure I will look back on. I remember hearing about one of my editor’s children who dressed in his Superman outfit long after the year he wore the costume for Halloween. The family apparently went along with it and the kid acted like a Super Hero for several years. I know of girls who dress in their princess outfits all the time (and some grown women to get in the spirit of house cleaning).

But not everyone may have that tendency toward the imaginative side. So I looked up what the child development folks say about how to encourage imaginative play or development in children. One child development expert recommends reading books, which helps not only develop language skills but also imagination. Along the same lines, I read that encouraging your child to make up or tell you a story is a good game to play. Will and I do this on a regular basis with me telling him stories about “Prince Will” or him telling me where Prince Will is going to travel this week. Thanks to the wonders of Little Einsteins, he is usually traveling to somewhere like Argentina or the Eiffle Tower. Along the same lines of making up stories, I found that imaginative play is another thing that’s encouraged to cultivate a toddler’s creative side. I guess this goes along with Will wearing his blanket around the house and pretending to be a monster or mimicking like he is playing a guitar in his rock band or pretending to be a cat or dog while he crawls around on the floor. Role playing games, especially where parents join in the fun, are another suggestion I found.

For more on the importance of imagination in toddlers and preschoolers, check out this article:

http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Development/Ask-Dr.-Sears-Encouraging-an-Active-Imagination