How Acting techniques helps kids part 1

Where can you find police officers, veterinarians, office workers, princesses, karate instructors, and chefs all happily working side-by-side? In a dramatic play area of a classroom, of course.

A child’s pretend play in classrooms or at home is often considered fun and imaginative, but with limited educational value.

The truth is, in the midst of creating a restaurant together, clomping around in grown-up shoes, or twirling around with friends in a fairy-tale land, children are learning to solve problems, coordinate, cooperate, and think flexibly. Imagine the skills required to turn the sandbox into a dinosaur bone excavation site!

Dr. Scott Kaufman emphasizes the value of pretend play in his 2012 Psychology Today article stating that, “Systematic research has increasingly demonstrated a series of clear benefits of children’s engagement in pretend games from the ages of about two and one half through ages six or seven.”

How Pretend Play Helps Children Learn

Pretending is important in child development. Through pretend play:

• Children learn about themselves and the world. Dramatic play experiences are some of the first ways children learn about their likes and dislikes, their interests, and their abilities. They experiment with role-playing and work to make sense out of what they’ve observed. Just watch children playing with dolls to see examples of this. Dolls often become versions of the child himself and are a safe way for children to express new ideas and feelings.
• Children work out confusing, scary, or new life issues. Have you ever witnessed children pretending to visit the doctor? One child dutifully holds the mock stethoscope as the others line up for a check-up. More often than not someone gets ‘shots’.

This is a child’s way of exploring an experience that is common and sometimes confusing or scary. Through these role plays, children become more comfortable and prepared for life events in a safe way. Children often use pretend play to work out more personal challenging life events too, whether it is coping with an illness in the family, the absence of a parent or divorce, or a house fire.