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Our children don’t just pretend to do something. In their mind, they do it. A block of wood wrapped in a blanket becomes a babydoll and deserves all the love a tiny mother can bestow upon it. A group of action figures actually march into fierce battle and suffer all the consequences of the war. In this other world, our children develop their imagination that might be used to write stories someday. They practice and gain confidence in using new words to expand their vocabulary and improve language skills. They safely experiment with new emotions and situations to see how it may feel. Pretending is a stage of play beyond the here and now. It goes from the concrete into the abstract, a function of the brain necessary for future skills like problem-solving, math, science, and creative thinking…….the “what if?” functions in life. This is all really good stuff! How can we help maximize these opportunities for our child? If we’re lucky enough to be invited into this wondrous world of imagination, dive in head-first! Fling yourself into the situation and “become” the character. You’ll re-discover the actor in you as you assist your child along his developmental journey. And if you are not invited, discretely stay out of the way of this incredible phenomenon that we have learned to call “pretending”. Sometimes all your child needs is the space for imagination to soar without our intrusion. Then our best contribution is to quietly step back and watch the miracle of brain development happen before our eyes. Our silent observation allows our child to take his or her new world where it needs to go. Playing is more than pretending…..way more than pretending. It’s the miraculous formation of confidence, experiences, language, imagination, and cognition, as the brain forms new neural pathways. Play is a child’s work. "Mastery comes from practice; practice comes from playful, compulsive experimentation and from a sense of wonder.”[1] We thought she was just banging on her toys. But our little girl is actually just doing her job. Enjoy the show! Anyone bring popcorn??
[1] Nachmanovitch, Stephen. "Practice." Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1990. Print. Priscilla Kaczuk, M.A. SLP
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| Last Updated on Friday, 04 June 2010 01:45 |
| The Reality of Pretending |
Written by Priscilla Kaczuk
Sunday, 02 May 2010 00:00
When did our eyes first learn to see this picture as a mess of toys instead of a drum set? Somehow, as we became adults, we lost the uninhibited ability to believe our fantasies. In this child’s mind, she is playing this set of 5 drums….in earnest! There is no pretending here…..just the reality of the sublime moment of belief. Even the innovative acting teacher, Konstantin Stanislavski, used the example of a child at play to teach students of his Method about belief in their given circumstances.