Has your child been spending time making you meals in her toy kitchen? Has she ever piled her toys in a wagon to “drive” to Grandma’s house? These and other Dramatic Play scenes can be spotted more often as she reaches 18-24 months old. Dramatic Play refers to a form of play where children can act out their ideas and emotions by taking on a variety of roles and imagining different perspectives.¹ It allows her to practice what she has learned from different situations and environments in her own make-believe world.²

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As a younger toddler, your child may still be carrying out simpler forms of pretend play, copying your daily routine and activities. This includes the behaviors and actions she’s seen you and other familiar people take part in, such as answering the phone, cooking dinner, and feeding babies.^3,4 And, because she’s just beginning to develop her ability for more complex symbolic thinking, representing one object for another, she may still use realistic objects more often than representational objects during her play.⁵

There are many learning benefits to Dramatic Play, including the building of her Vocabulary Knowledge (language acquisition),⁶ control of emotions (self-regulation),⁷ expression of thoughts (communications),⁸ negotiation with others on roles and story planning (cooperation and problem-solving),^6,8 awareness of daily work, symbolic thinking, and understanding other people’s feelings and perspectives (empathy).⁶ Your child will be more and more able to feel empathy and cooperate with others as her pretend play matures because it will help her understand that she and others may have different thoughts and perspectives (Theory of Mind).¹ 

As her mental representation abilities improve, stretch your child’s imagination by encouraging her to layer fantasy elements into her pretend playtime. Mental representations, which are internal images that cannot be seen at the moment or experienced by the senses, allow young children to act out events they’ve never experienced or “use” objects that don’t exist.⁹ So make your pretend playtime together fantastical and creative! Why not suggest that she have a superpower (e.g. flying), train a dinosaur to lie down and roll over, or invent a new hybrid of animal that doesn’t exist (unicorns, anyone?). Make her experiences richer in detail by drawing pictures, creating habitats from blocks, reading magical stories, and acting out silly or outrageous scenarios. Don’t forget that it’s not the end result of her Dramatic Play scenarios that count, but rather the creative and cognitive process that brings her make-believe world to life.¹⁰

Play Tips:

Do you want to know how you can support your child’s development of Dramatic Play skills at this age? It’s easy! Read on for some simple tips to incorporate into your daily play time together.

1. Participate in your child’s pretend play. Encourage her efforts and creativity in Dramatic Play by taking part in the story and offering play props for her to use. Start with realistic props, but gradually expand your child’s symbolic thinking by using representational objects during your play (e.g. use a banana as a phone, a shoe box for a baby’s bed, or a towel as a flying cape). Follow her lead in the activity, but try to offer a few different choices in playing out the scenarios.⁴
2. Encourage your child to play different roles when pretending. Playing more than one role during pretend play is a great way to strengthen the ability to understand different perspectives, as well as practice the manners and social behavior that will build her emotional intelligence and social-emotional competency. Use a variety of different scenarios to show that people’s behaviors can be different and unpredictable. For instance, consider playing the role of a child who talks back or a mommy who wants to eat a snack instead of feeding her hungry baby.
3. Incorporate more reading and story time to fuel your child’s imagination! Research shows that reading to your child at bedtime helps support pretend play.¹¹ As she gets older, be sure to share more fantasy stories with her to spark her creative juices and encourage her to use more symbols in her make-believe scenarios. And don’t forget that Dramatic Play can also improve reading skills and comprehension when you act out scenes from the books you read together!¹²
4. Ask questions!⁴ Even at this age, your child can answer simple questions about her thought process. By asking questions, like “What can this do?” or “Where should this friend live?” you will increase her attention to detail, which will stimulate her creativity during pretend playtime.

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Developmental Milestones:

Has your baby achieved the following Dramatic Play developmental milestones yet? If yes, check off all the skill(s) she has already mastered to date using Playful Bee’s developmental milestones tracker. It’s absolutely FREE and easy to use, just click HERE!

• Enjoys simple pretend play activities using common objects (e.g. uses a banana for a phone, bowl for a hat, box as a car).

Sources:

¹Kaufman, Scott B.; Singer, Jerome L.; and Singer, Dorothy G. (2012). The Need for Pretend Play in Child Development. Psychology Today: Beautiful Minds.Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201203/the-need-pretend-play-in-child-development.

²Gellens, Suzanne R. (2013). Building Brains. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

³California Department of Education (2009). California Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations.

⁴Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (2009). Pennsylvania Learning Standards for Early Childhood.

⁵California Department of Education. Cognitive Development Domain. California Infant/Toddler Learning & Development Foundations. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/cd/re/itf09cogdev.asp.

⁶Cecchini, Marie E., M.S. How Dramatic Play Can Enhance Learning. Early Childhood News. Retrieved March 12, 2014, from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=751.

⁷Hirsh-Pasek, K. Golinkoff, R.M., Berk, L.E., & Singer. D.G. (2009). A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the Evidence. New York, NY: Oxford  University Press.

⁸Hughes, F.P. (1999). Children, Play, and Development (3rd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

⁹Sternberg, Robert J. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

¹⁰Wagner, Betty J. (1999). Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium (2nd Ed.).Portland, ME: Calendar Island Publishers.

¹¹Singer, D.G.& Singer, J.L. (2005). Imagination and Play in the Electronic Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

¹²Rowe, Deborah Wells. (1998). The Literate Potentials of Book-Related Dramatic Play. Reading Research Quarterly, 33(1), 10-35.

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Playful Bee

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Playful Bee is an e-Preschool that delivers inquiry-based preschool learning from the classroom to your home. Our preschool curriculum was created by our talented team of rock star teachers. With years of hands-on preschool and Kindergarten teaching experience, they've developed a high-quality preschool experience that is convenient-to-use and easy-to-teach by you, grandparents, or your nanny at home.

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