When do kids pretend play
Stages of Play from 24–36 Months: The World of Imagination
Learn how infants and toddlers develop play skills from birth to 3, and what toys and activities are appropriate for their age.
From age 2 to 3, your toddler’s interests and skills are blooming at an amazing, almost dizzying rate! All the new things they can do—from walking and talking to figuring out how things work and beginning to make friends—are fuel for the imagination and creativity. This is a special time in your child’s life. Learn more about how infants and toddlers develop play skills. And don’t forget—YOU are still their most important playmate and toy!
Playing Pretend
Between 2 and 3, your toddler will use their growing thinking skills to play pretend. With props, like a doll and toy bottle, she will act out steps of a familiar routine—feeding, rocking, and putting a doll to sleep. As your toddler learns to use symbols, imaginary play skills will grow more complex. A round pillow, for example, can become a yummy pizza!
TOYS TO EXPLORE:
- Stuffed animals and dolls
- Accessories such as baby blanket, bottle for doll, etc.
- Toy dishes, pots and pans, pretend food
- Toy cars, trucks, bus, or train, with little people that fit inside
- Blocks
HELPING YOUR TODDLER PLAY AND LEARN:
- Let your child choose what to play, and then add on to his activity. If they have a toy bus, you might ask where it’s going or if they would like to pick up some people waiting at the bus stop.
- Give your child a block and say, “Do you want a piece of my birthday cake? It’s so yummy!” (as you pretend to munch on it). Do they understand the block can stand in for something else? If so, have a birthday party using the block as a cake, sing a birthday song, pretend to blow the candles out, and “cut” a slice to eat.
Solving Problems Through Play
Sorting toys—putting cars in one basket and balls in another—is just one way that your toddler is solving problems using thinking skills. You may also see them try one puzzle piece in different spaces, or turn it around to see if it fits.
Your child is now also using tools (like a stick) to solve problems (how to reach a toy under the couch).
TOYS TO EXPLORE:
- Chunky puzzles
- Memory-type games
- Stacking cups or ring stacks
- Shape-sorters and bead mazes
- Toys that can be activated—like cars that roll forward when you pull them back
HELPING YOUR TODDLER PLAY AND LEARN:
- Make your own Memory game using photos of family members. Print out two copies of 10 photos, glue each photo to an index card. Place them face up on the floor and see if your child can find the matches.
- Turn cleaning up into a sorting game. Take photos of your child’s different toys and tape them to the basket or box where they belong. Show your child how to sort her toys. Before you know it, they’ll be an expert at the “clean-up game”!
Now You’re Talking!
Toddlers are learning new words by the day! Most are using two-word phrases (“what that”) and by age 3, some three-word phrases (“Josie want cookie!”).
Toddlers can now follow two-step requests such as “Please get your hat and put it on.” Two-year-olds can also understand stories. They can now connect the words you say with the illustrations.
TOYS TO EXPLORE:
- Board books
- Songs and fingerplays
- Dolls
- Child-safe mirror
HELPING YOUR TODDLER PLAY AND LEARN:
- During bath-time, ask your child to wash his nose and belly. Then ask them to wash his doll’s nose and belly. Look in a mirror together and name the different parts of your faces—eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and more.
- Read together. If your toddler is wiggly, ask them to do the actions on the page—hopping like the frog or dancing like the little mouse. Ask questions, too: “What do you see on this page?” or “Do you see a moon?”
Fantastic Fingers
Your toddler is now able to use his hands and fingers to pick up food, small toys, and more. They may even hold a crayon using his thumb and pointer finger, instead of their fist.
Toddlers are learning to control the strokes they make with crayons and markers.
TOYS TO EXPLORE:
- Foam or wooden blocks, plastic interlocking blocks, or bristle blocks
- Chunky puzzles
- Pull-toys, stringing beads, and pop-beads
- Washable crayons and markers
HELPING YOUR TODDLER PLAY AND LEARN:
- Tape paper to your child’s high chair or to the table and let your child explore with crayons and markers. Watch them scribble away! See if they want to imitate making a line or circles that you draw first. But don’t worry if they have their ideas about what she wants to draw—or how to draw it.
- Play with play-dough. Practice rolling the dough, poking holes in it, or making little balls of dough and dropping them in a small cup to dump out. Older toddlers still like fill-and-dump activities—plus this lets them use their hands and fingers to explore and create.
The 5 Stages of Pretend Play in Early Childhood
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Throughout early childhood, children engage in many types of play that are all equally important for their development.
One of these is pretend play, also known as imaginative, make-believe or fantasy play.
Children typically progress through 5 stages of pretend play.
Pretend play may appear to just be a child imitating what they see around them and how others are behaving, but it stimulates a great deal of creativity and thinking skills.
When children act out their world together, they engage in cooperative behaviour as they work together to create a fantasy scene. This involves high levels of social skills.
They also develop emotionally as they act out life scenarios that are full of emotions and new experiences. Playing gives them a safe space to experience these big emotions.
Here are the 5 stages of imaginative play in early childhood:
1. Enactive Naming
The first phase of pretend play is called enactive naming. In this stage, a child is not yet actively “pretending,” rather she is showing the knowledge she has.
For example, the first time she puts an empty spoon or cup to her mouth, she may be imitating a behaviour she has seen, or acting out her understanding of the objects, but she is not yet playing.
She is beginning to learn the difference between real and not real.
Young children love to imitate the actions and behaviours they see around them and may also want to sweep the floor, whether with a real broom or a toy broom.
2. Autosymbolic Schemes
In the second stage, called autosymbolic schemes, the young child begins to display the first signs of pretending, but only in relation to herself. This starts around the age of 12 months.
A child may pretend to lie down and sleep or take a pretend sip from their cup while making noises to show she is drinking.
At this stage you will see that the child is intending to play by her mannerisms and actions – she may smile or look at you to show you that she is pretending.
Playing with toy replicas of household objects is fun for young toddlers, and by using these items for their correct functions, they show their growing cognitive skills.
At some point, the young child will start to engage in pretend play by using objects to represent other objects. This is called symbolic play.
This means a child who wishes to pretend to talk on the phone, may reach for a block instead of a real phone or a toy that represents the real object.
The child feels that the block shares some characteristics with a phone – perhaps the size and the shape – and it becomes a good replacement for the phone.
This kind of symbolic pretend play shows yet another layer of advanced thinking.
Pretending while playing is rooted in a child’s social development. Their interactions with parents, family, peers and other caregivers forms the basis of their play, and forms the foundation for their cognitive development.
3. Decentred Symbolic Schemes
Between the age of 12 and 24 months, a child will begin to involve others in her pretend play.
She will pass you the cup to take a sip from or try to feed you with an empty spoon. This shows that she is becoming aware of others as being separate from herself.
From around 2 years of age, toddlers often begin to play with dolls. They see their dolls as living beings, with feelings and states, such as hunger and tiredness.
This behaviour shows a huge leap in a child’s thinking skills as she matures.
It is also believed that the advanced thinking shown during pretend play is not yet seen in other aspects of a child’s life at this young age.
During this type of play, a child knows she is pretending and knows that the other child is pretending, and that they are both attaching mental concepts to their scenario.
This type of awareness is unusual as children typically see everything from an egocentric viewpoint.
During pretend play; however, they are able to experience something from someone else’s shoes and even try out different points of view.
Children also show that while engaging in symbolic play they are able to assign two separate identities to an object – such as understanding that a block is a block, and in this case, also a phone.
This is something they are not able to do in other contexts, for example when looking at pictures of objects that represent other objects.
To give an example of this in a language context – a very young child knows that a banana is a banana, but will not also refer to it as a fruit.
Pretend play, therefore, plays a big role in helping a child develop thinking skills.
Even the objects that a child uses to play with show her level of thinking. In the beginning, she uses real objects, then toy replicas, then other objects as representations.
The older a child gets, the more she can use non-realistic toys in her play, with her imagination being the only thing she needs.
4. Sequencing Pretend Acts
In this stage, a child learns to apply a logical sequence to her pretending.
If she wants to give her doll a bath, for example, she will take off her clothes before doing so.
The child has learned through observing others and how people behave in various contexts and is strengthening her memory skills, so that this knowledge can be used later, in a play context.
5. Planned Pretend
In this final stage, known as planned pretend, a child will collect props and items that she needs for her pretend play.
She will have a specific idea in mind for what she wants to act out and will plan accordingly. She may pretend to be a teacher giving a lesson, or a mother taking her child to the shops.
Preschoolers are usually in this stage of pretend play and they use high-level social skills while engaging.
They need to communicate well, play a specific role, allow others to play their roles, share and take turns, and follow the agreed rules, as they play with a common goal.
Sometimes this requires compromising, negotiating and persuading.
Read more about the types of play in early childhood.
Source:
Natanson, J. 1998. Learning Through Play: A parent’s guide to the first five years. Tafelberg Publishers Limited: Cape Town.
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What to do if a child considers himself a kitten
“Mom, I am a kitten!” Your four-year-old baby says and asks to be petted.
Nicely. Then she meows and pretends to wash herself with her paw. It's cute too. Then she tries to eat out of the cat's bowl - so, it's not cute anymore. Children very often flirt, before you have time to look back, how playing with cats, puppies or birds is already becoming life.
Children bark in the street, asking to be called puppies, walking on a leash and brushing. Where is the line between playing and overplaying and how to stop this fun? We answer this question with the advice of psychologists and the comments of parents who do not have children, but animals. And so that you do not take this problem so seriously, we will also tell you what animals the kids play with. nine0003
What do psychologists say?
None of the children who in childhood considered themselves cats and dogs remain so in adulthood. Therefore, such a game should be perceived only as a game, you should not think about any deviations or consultations with a psychologist. However, there may be several reasons for such a game.
If you are tired of barking and meowing, try to understand what exactly it is connected with.
A child may simply like an animal for some qualities that, as it seems to the child, he himself does not possess. Dogs are loyal and brave, cats are sweet and graceful, horses have manes, and birds have wings. Therefore, such a game may simply be the embodiment of the desire to have something similar. Convince the child that he either has this quality or does not need it. nine0003
HOW TO SHARE A ROOM BETWEEN CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES
Even children are often addicted to playing cat-dogs, as they lack affection and attention. Lovely pets are stroked all the time, they are played with, they are given a lot of time. If the baby is constantly reaching out to you for hugs and kisses during the game, then he just wants more of your love.
It often happens that the game is caused by the fact that this very animal is not in the house, and the kid wants to have a pet, so he turns into one himself.
Try to find out if your daughter wants to replace playing cat with a real cat. The opposite case is if the baby loves a pet and tries to imitate him. nine0003
If you are already tired of such games, try to talk to your child about it, say that you love the girl Masha more than the kitten Murka. And if that doesn't help, at least use it to your advantage. If you are a cat, then you should go to bed on time, because cats sleep a lot. If you are a dog, you must obey, because dogs are trained. Also, try to set a time frame for when a child can be a bird and when not.
QUIZ: WHAT PARENT ARE YOU IN A TOY STORE? nine0017
If your child takes the game from home to the street or kindergarten, try not to be shy or rude to him. Do not think that other adults will not understand you, you are not the only family that raises an animal. If the girl is barking outside, say that only children are playing on the playground, and it’s time for the dogs to go home.
If the teacher complains that a kitten has wound up in the group, which licks its paws, explain to the kid that cats are not allowed to enter the garden. There are so many things that kids love that animals don't - use these arguments. nine0003
And just be patient. Usually, by school, such hobbies pass and others begin. And some parents start to miss their little cat.
What do parents say?
“My child has been playing for two years. Two, Carl! In the end, when once again the child mentioned that he was a pussy, I gave out a long tirade in places not for children's ears on the topic that this game got to me, and I no longer want to hear about cats, dogs, or other animals . I will play only with a person, but with THIS, even if it doesn’t fit. The child, perplexed, listened to my cries and asked quite like an adult: “What should I play with you then?” nine0042
This is where I realized my cant. We played a lot and in different ways, but since then metamorphoses into little animals have never happened.
“Yes, it’s okay for you))) cats are so convenient to manipulate))) if they don’t obey, then I’m a dog)) in the game everything is done easily and naturally. If she’s really “flirting”, then I say that since she’s a cat, then we won’t swim in the evening, they say, cats don’t like that ...)) she immediately - no, no, no longer a cat)) (loves to swim) ".
HOW TO DEAL WITH A CHILD'S HISTERY?
“Yes, yes, it’s simply impossible, in our country, of course, it’s not yet measured in years, but the topic is already a puppy with experience. Yelling, asking, ignoring nothing helps, it will bark and bark. As a result, I freaked out, said that since I was a puppy, I would train for an hour a day. And she began to drive him on bring-give. And how trying to leave, the "place" team! As a result, he realized that it was no longer fun, though he didn’t stop playing puppy, it’s just that now he’s climbing to his dad with this.
nine0042
“I'm fine with that. The eldest was also a kitten for a long time, she grew up as a human being. Now the younger one has also “looked around”, and worse than that one. I play along where I can. And if I get tired, it's not because she's a cat, but just because of her. If she didn’t meow, but sang, I would be tired too, what’s the difference then? It passes, I don’t understand that everyone is so crazy. It’s no more difficult with animal children than with ordinary children.”
Our home zoo
Kittens, dogs are the most common children's "transformations". There are others that are much more original. nine0003
“Squirrel has been living at my house for a year now. This is Belchonok or Squirrel. She eats nut porridge, fried mushrooms, etc. When I pick up my daughter from the kindergarten, she runs to me shouting “Belchikhaaa”. And on the street he meets the children “I am Diana the Squirrel”, and the children are not at all surprised.
"Ours introduces himself to the surrounding people as 'I am Gallahard's knightly horse.' and gallops in circles with a loud neigh."
“pussy squirrels… I have a dinosaur living here… some kind of pachycephalosaurus or velociraptor, running and growling. I would gladly trade for a pussy." nine0042
"Mine thinks he's a dolphin."
WHEN CAN A CHILD GO ALONE?
“My youngest was a gopher for almost the entire kindergarten age. He made a hole out of a blanket, stood in a column, nibbled something vigorously, etc. My husband was very nervous, kept asking me if this suslimania would pass soon. Passed to the first class ... ".
“My oldest plays leopards. He is a grown up leopard cub, the youngest is a leopard cub, I am a mother leopard, I like it. But when the game goes into a different direction and he is a mother leopard, and the younger one and I are leopard cubs, then it becomes no laughing matter - we have to eat houses, stones, go for a walk in a cloud and other “mom” oversights.
nine0042
"Today mine became an antelope. She ran down the street on all fours (however, as usual), and running into the group, she stopped and began to beat with her hoof. "Look how much gold flies! I am an antelope!"
“Girls, my daughter at 2 and a half years old was generally a SLUG!!! and this went on for quite some time. My daughter just really liked the slug in the picture, he was really very cute. I told her about them, and my daughter was impressed. She behaved quietly and calmly. But people, of course, fell out when she presented herself as a slug. Then they asked again for a long time ... ". nine0042
Good luck to you and your animals!
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