What is Imaginative Play?
Meet Aarav and Mishika, who turn an empty box into a helmet & zoom into space. Here is Nirvaan, who can turn his sofa into a ship and sails on sea expeditions.
You must have seen your child playing with a spoon and dish, pretending to be a drummer, or hopping across the house with a plastic block as if it were a flying car! Haven’t you? That is imaginative play!
Sometimes called pretend play, a child roleplays experiences of interest or pretends to be something or someone else. However, it is not just simple play; the process of pretending helps a child learn important skills for development. It gives your kid a chance to try out different experiences and roles. It’s essential to a child’s cognitive, social, and physical development and should be supported.
Why is imaginative play essential for your child’s development?
Inspires creativity and imagination
Pretend play gives your kids a chance to develop their imagination. As a result, they become more creative. With imagination, they can pretend to be anyone or anything they want. This can help them understand a different viewpoint and develop independent thought.
It ultimately makes them happier and more likely to become strong, self-assured individuals.
Promotes physical development
Your child’s entire body is at work during imaginative play. It incorporates running, leaping, skipping, crawling, and other actions. As a result, children can build muscles, learn new skills, and improve their motor skills through play.
Develops social and emotional skills
You must have seen your child mimic adults or other authority figures in their life and practice the reactions they have seen and learned. This is a part of imaginary play. Children often pick up skills from their environment and place a lot of emphasis on seeing how adults react to different problems.
The ability to roleplay and adopt a new character’s personality helps individuals strengthen their social skills. It enables kids to practice making decisions and encourages them to improve their problem-solving abilities and use their imaginations to consider various situations in their heads.
Additionally, it supports their emotional growth as well. They start introducing their emotions into imaginative playtime by responding with the right emotional reaction, indicating that they are developing emotionally.
It’s a vital part of child development to practice these skills, mainly as it works on their understanding of how to act in situations and interpretation skills.
Helps children understand the adult world
Engaging in pretend play of everyday life situations, such as different household chores or school environments, lets your child experience grown-up activities and encourages them to join in with you in the fundamental day-to-day tasks too.
It can be said that pretend play engages your child in the adult world around them. As kids mature, this will provide them with a framework for understanding and growing in the outside world.
Encourages Independence
When your child indulges in imaginative play, they create stories, explore possibilities, set boundaries, make rules and re-enact different experiences. This helps them confidently understand and deal with typical daily situations. As a result, they tend to develop independence and critical thinking skills.
Improves language and communication skills
Imaginative play is about communication—children like narrating and describing what is happening. As a result, their vocabulary and linguistic abilities improve significantly. In addition, pretend play provides an opportunity for discussions. In doing so, kids frequently use words they have heard from adults, from a book or a TV show, as they use various phrases to connect.
This use of language fosters the development of vocabulary, knowledge of words, and reading skills. For kids of all ages, imaginative play is enjoyable and a fantastic learning tool. Parents can help their kids by participating and creating a positive, high-quality play environment.
Increases problem-solving ability
Through imaginative play, when a child re-enacts real-life situations, they develop a lot of curiosity and learn problem-solving skills as they solve issues that arise during their play. This increases their problem-solving skills. They understand how to collaborate with others, negotiate, and resolve conflicts. When parents provide their children with space to resolve problems during pretend play, they become creative problem-solvers. This is why pre-schoolers are always encouraged to engage in roleplaying activities.
How to make pretend play safe and exciting?
A few years ago, the founders of Tiny Explorer were battling the same question. They couldn’t find a single product in the Indian market that fulfilled their expectations.
What does a parent want the most when shopping for a product for their child? Naturally, they would look for something safe and valuable. So, Swaty and Chintan began their journey of building a product that could survive the roughest of plays to help their child grow mentally and physically. All this was to be achieved by placing safety at the centre.
That is how the COSMOS play couch came into existence!
How is it better than any other furniture available in the market?
COSMOS play couch is the first kid’s play couch in India. A product made with love, care, and science is what you need to gift your child during their growth years. Whether pretend-play or casual reading, this couch is made for all activities.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our product!