How to Promote Imaginative Play: Occupational Therapist Approved

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As a parent or caregiver, chances are high that you have heard about the importance of your children engaging in imaginative play. However, despite being privy to this information, you may have given little thought as to WHY it is important and how to BEST promote imaginative play in your household.

Why Imaginative Play is Important?

More and more as parents we are hearing about the strong push for screen time to be limited among our children. With a wide variety of reasons to back the “limit screen time” motion including: risk for obesity (limited physical activity), violence exposure, irregular sleep patterns, behavioral problems, etc., perhaps one of the biggest reasons is the elimination of imaginative play.

So why is imaginative play so important?

Believe it or not, imaginative play is responsible for a large portion of your child’s emotional and social development. As children learn best by observing, imagining, and doing.

Picture “play time” in your head.

What do you see? Perhaps you see little girls and boys going in and out of a tiny playhouse, taking on life roles as parents or siblings. Maybe you see them pretending to make lunch for friends or socializing around a table. Perhaps you see them with a cash register, pretending to purchase items from a store and interact with customers. Maybe you see them sitting down with toys and figurines, pretending to be members of society (i.e. police officer, doctor, teacher) and moving vehicles through traffic. Now, what do you hear? Perhaps you hear them working out solutions to made up problems. Maybe you hear them demonstrating love and compassion with their dolls. And if you listen closely enough, maybe you even hear them making sizzling sounds as their pretend bacon fries on the pan.

Time and time again research has shown the incredible benefit of imaginative play, with the findings even going so far as to claim imaginative play as a critical contributor to the normal development of a child. These imaginative skills, once established, will continue to blossom and grow with your child throughout their lifetime (just think, when was the last time you had to use your imagination to solve a problem or figure out daily plans as an adult?)

How to Best Promote Imaginative Play.

So now that we know WHY imaginative play is so crucial to our children’s development, we need to know HOW best to promote it.

As a mom of two young children, who also happens to be an occupational therapist, I not only see the incredible benefit of imaginative play firsthand, but I also promote it whenever and however possible. While imaginative play can be promoted in a large variety ways, I find greatest success with the following:

Provide the environment but limit the structure. In other words, go ahead and provide toys, art supplies, and items as needed; however, then allow your child’s imagination to take over. Don’t tell them how to play with a certain toy, but allow them to trial it on their own. Additionally, don’t correct what may appear to be a mistake to you (i.e. if they are cooking pasta in the sink), but instead allow them to play as desired.
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Don’t make it too easy. One of my favorite childhood memories was when a few friends and I raided the toilet paper closet and created our own wedding dresses. This one event took hours, elicited endless laughs, and really tested our imagination. Now imagine we simply would have had wedding dresses at our disposal to wear from the beginning. While I have no doubt we would have had fun sporting them around, the same imaginative play would not have occurred. In order to best allow your child’s imagination to take over, don’t provide them with endless completed items… allow their creation instead.
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Encourage fine motor skills. Proper implementation of fine motor skills is critical for everyday life. Buttoning our shirts, writing our name, clasping our necklace, putting in our contacts, taking out medication, tying our shoes, zipping our coat, etc. Without fine motor skills, everyday life would be significantly more challenging. So, why not incorporate fine motor skill practice into every imaginative play. If providing dress-up clothes, provide those with buttons and zippers. When setting up for an art project, incorporate string and beads. If purchasing a toy, don’t be afraid of little pieces that need to be manipulated (of course choosing age appropriate toys for choking hazards).
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Encourage social skills. While proper social interaction for children is very important for development, it often makes more sense in theory than reality. Setting up playdates isn’t always easy, and let’s face it siblings don’t always want to play together. The beauty of imaginative play is that your child can take on the roles of others independently. By playing with dolls, your child can be both the parent and the baby. When playing with figurines, your child can take on character roles, conversing with each other effectively. In choosing and providing toys that allow for social interaction, you are consequently encouraging social skills.

My Favorite Way to Promote Imaginative Play

Taking all four of the components above and incorporating them into my “favorite” way to promote imaginative play… I would say my top two are: playing “house” or “life” (allowing my children to explore the house and make up imaginative play as they go) and using toys that initiate a context, allowing them to not only incorporate their fine motor skills, but also use additional items to expand upon the toy I provided.

A perfect example of the latter form is the use of PLAYMOBIL toys. Both my children and I love PLAYMOBIL toys for a variety of reasons. From their strong focus on imaginative play, their use of everyday realistic characters (i.e. police officers, firemen, school bus drivers and students) along with their heavy focus on fantasy characters (i.e. modern day dinosaurs and Ghostbusters), their incredible quality (items won’t break with a couple uses), and their heavy attention to detail (all important for proper learning); I can’t say enough great things about PLAYMOBIL toys and recommend them again and again.

How PLAYMOBIL Toys Hit Every Key Component of Imaginative Play

Our current favorite is the PLAYMOBIL School Bus. While preparing for the school year ahead, I was most excited to surprise my four-year-old with this school bus.

Want to grab one for your kiddo? Hover over the photo to click through to Walmart to shop!

In no time, I was amazed at how this one toy encompassed all of the key imaginative play components I noted above. Here is how:

Provide the environment but limit the structure. After gifting my child with this school bus, I then handed her a craft bucket. While I provided her the environment, I didn’t set it up for her. She was in charge of dressing the students, creating the road, etc. In no time she used pipe cleaners to create stop signs and roads.

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Don’t make it too easy. I was careful not to provide her with preset roads or suggest she use existing wood blocks or street signs. Instead, I allowed her imagination to take over.

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Encourage fine motor skills. All PLAYMOBIL toys are awesome for this. She very thoroughly worked on her fine motor skills by dressing the characters, opening the school bus door, putting the characters in and out of the school bus, making the items in the environment, pushing the button for lights, etc.

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Encourage social skills. It was wonderful to hear her play the roles of bus driver and students. I listened to her interactions between characters and how she demonstrated manners, role taking, etc.

Now easily available at Walmart, I simply can’t wait to add to my daughter’s PLAYMOBIL collection for many years to come; confident in knowing I am promoting her imaginative play!