Developing Your Child’s Imagination Through Dress Up Games

A child’s imagination is curious, inventive and boundless. It’s also one of the strongest tools they have at their disposal to learn other skills abilities, like learning a language, team work, story writing, acting, role playing, etc. Very often, this learning takes the form of pretend play and dress up games, which allow the children to become a completely different personality and live incredible adventures.

Manufacturers have developed toys that encourage children to use their imagination to play with them. A lot of them are toy versions of appliances and objects that adults use, like cooking toys, toy telephones, toy briefcases, toy computers, etc. Some of them, however, let children become some type of person or character, such a pirate swords or cowboy pistols.

Children tend to observe their parents and other adults and imitate them. That’s why a lot of their games involve child versions of adult activities, like cooking, driving, working, or building. For example, if you bake cookies often, chances are your child will “prepare” some of his or her own and you’ll have to pretend that you eat them. Of course, you wouldn’t want your kid to “prepare” his or her cookies with mud and dirt and disposable plates that he or she found in the garbage can. You’d much rather he played with a mini toy plastic oven, and use playing clay or some other material that is much more hygienic. And if your child is really into it, you may consider investing in a toy fridge, toy kitchen set and clean disposable plastic cups and plates.

Dressing up before the game can be as much fun as the game itself. Children of both genders like to wear mom and dad’s favorite garments and imagine they’re capes, magical hats, princess dresses, cowboy boots, fireman suits, helicopter pilot helmets, etc. Not only does dressing up enhances the experience for them, it also gives parents a great chance to take pictures that they’ll treasure for ever. The only downside is that children sometimes decide to play dress up when their parents are not there and use daddy’s best smoking or mommy’s Louis Vuitton purse, just before the big event that their parents had to attend. That’s why it’s sometimes convenient to buy them an outfit of their favorite character. Sometimes just a few accessories, like masks, hats, earrings, gloves, or whatever gadget their favorite character uses, will do.

If your child’s favorite playing place is your garden or a park, you might want to see if he or she’s interested in gardening. Gardening toys tend to be built in metal, as opposed to plastic, and unlike most role playing toys, a lot of them can actually serve for the real thing, just, of course, in a much, much smaller scale. You can find little wheelbarrows, pails, protection gloves, weeders, shovels, aprons, etc. It’s a great activity where you can pass some values to your child, like working together, the value of hard work, and patience. For small children, there are small bushes and plants that are ready to plant around, so they won’t have to wait until a plant grows from the ground (this lasts an eternity from a child’s point of view.

Small children will probably be the only ones that enjoy doing housekeeping, specially if they see you doing it often and you present it as a fun activity that you can do together. Even if small children’s help doesn’t make much of a difference around the house, you’ll be setting things up so that when he or she grows up, you’ll have a much less difficult time keeping the house clean. Small toy brooms might be the only brooms your child will use until he or she moves to his or her own place, so you might want to take advantage of that.

Another thing your child will see you handle and talk about A LOT is money. It’s very difficult for small children to understand the value of money and how it works. They see it as magical paper that can be traded for toys and candy. A small cash register, fake plastic cards, and fake bills can be useful to role play transactions. You can practice this way with your child, so he’d have a limited budget and make decisions on which candy or toy to invest. That way, he or she will be better prepared when you give him or her a real allowance.

Other times, parents will be the ones that will engage children in their hobbies. For those who’d like to see their children playing the role of James Bond, or similar, there are several toy spy gadgets out there. Some of these gadgets are so cool that some parents would wish they were the ones playing with them (or at least that they had had them when they were children). Among others, your child can play with walkie talkies, spy goggles, fake x-ray glasses, communicator watch, code breakers, etc.

If dad (or mom, why not?) is anything at all like Tim Talyor, the Tool Man from the Home Improvement series, then children will be around when they tools are used for building or fixing the house. Of course, it’d be irresponsible to give a child a real tool, but that’s why there are toy tools that your child can use to pretend he’s doing the same thing you are. Not only he or she will have fun, but he or she will learn how different tools work and what they do, such as toy hammers, screw drivers, drills, saws, etc. Some of them even have movement and sound (these are of course, for show only and safe for your children).

Finally, a timeless classic that children of all ages and eras have enjoyed for generations is puppets. They can be as simple as a hand puppet, to a very elaborate one that requires some skill to use, like a marionette, or a puppet for a ventriloquist. They allow for an amazing range of role play stories, such as the traditional pirates or princes, to the most modern ones, like astronauts. A very good idea is to engage the child into the building of a puppet appropriate to his age, which can be as simple as a sock puppet.

So what the common denominator among all these activities? Why, children’s imagination. When children use their imagination through role playing and dressing up, they have a great time by becoming almost anything they want. Toys and accessories can help them immerse even more in their world, while at the same time, being safe.