Creative Acts Part Three: Pretend Play

I’m late writing this because my entire family has had sinus infections for the last week. There’s nothing like a week of sickness to remind me of the importance of pretend play. We try to keep screen time to a fairly limited amount, but during times of sickness our normal expectations for it tend to go out the window as we encourage our kids to rest as much as possible. But after a week of it I start to feel a little like the grinch: “Oh, the NOISE. NOISE. NOISE!!”

The ironic thing is that my house is rarely “quiet”; as a homeschool family we do life at home the majority of the time, and the chaos and craziness of four kids ages 2-9, is rarely soundless. But I’ve noticed that the noise of technology is something altogether different, and it wears on me (and my kids) greatly. So where does all the normal noise in my home come from, if not from screens? Two words: PRETEND PLAY. 

If there’s one thing you take away from this series on creativity, it’s this: margin for imaginative play is essential for children. And most of our kids (mine included) aren’t engaging in active play enough. Our culture is not set up to make it easy to let our kids just play. New technology is thrown at us almost weekly. Our massive marketing industry is continuously telling us our kids need ANOTHER flashy, shiny new toy. All our friends are putting their kids in multiple extracurriculars so we should probably do the same. Standardized testing is pushing schools to have children reach benchmarks earlier and earlier, resulting in increasingly rigorous school days and students who often bring home piles of homework. And we are feeling the same harried pace as adults; we work hard and fill our schedules and scroll instagram in the tiny margins of our day. And we are so exhausted from it that it often feels simpler to just put our kids in front of a screen in hope of a few minutes of peace for ourselves. Why make time for our kids to play? Wouldn’t it be better for them to be “productive” with all parts of their day? Short answer: NO. I could talk for the rest of the month about all the reasons this is so important, but I want to focus on a few of what I consider the most important reasons.

All kids primarily learn through active play. When I was in college in teacher education classes, we spent a lot of time talking about learning styles, and while there is some truth to the fact that kids learn differently, one thing is universally true of all children: they learn through playing. This can be difficult for us to grasp; what could our kids possibly be learning when they’re setting up a tea party picnic for their dolls, or when they make a toy pirate ship out of a cardboard box, like in the picture below? This is where we have to remember that learning is about more than math facts and how to read (although both of those things can be learned through imaginative play). My kids have been playing the same game of “hotel” for the last five months, ever since we moved to our new house. Of course, they take breaks to play other things, but they continuously come back to the same game, progressively building on it and adding more parts to it. 

In just this simple game played over the course of five months, I have witnessed the following learning: my preschooler learned to spell her name and my oldest two learned to spell the full names of every member of our family as they filled out “forms” for each person staying at the “hotel,” as well as how to spell other words as needed; the older two got a crash course in how to run a good business as they decided their hotel needed “amenities” to make it more “popular,” things like crochet and sewing classes, a pool, cooking lessons, and all kinds of other things I can’t even remember now (basically they are creating THEIR ideal resort hotel 😉); they practiced the important skill of meal planning as they made “menus” for their hotel based on the food we have as well as things they know are normally served for meals in our house; they practiced handwriting as they made their own paperwork and signs; they got involved in housework, because of course they wanted their “hotel” to be clean; they had to think about good customer service– “the front desk is over here if you need anything; sorry Lizzy, I can’t get up because a customer might need me.”

I know some of those things (maybe all of them) seem unimportant, but they’re actually all valuable life skills that they will use no matter what career path they take. They practiced spelling in a way that would stick with them, much more so than any workbook could teach. I guarantee they won’t misspell any of these words again, because it mattered to them. They developed skills to help them be good employees or maybe run their own business someday. They learned how to meal plan, a skill which is sadly lacking for many of my generation and is so necessary to running a home well. They learned how to take care of a home. They improved their handwriting without the often painful experience of copywork or handwriting workbooks.

Now I want to pause here for a moment to point something out: when I was a much younger mom I would have read something like the above and thought “Oh, great, now I have to plan out this elaborate hotel pretend play experience when I’m exhausted from being up with the baby all night and the toddler is in the terrible two stage, and I just want a break, not more work to do!” This is not the point!! My kids did all of the above completely on their own; the only time they asked for help was when they asked me questions for my hotel “form.” I do think there are things we can do to help our kids along with pretend play, but don’t overcomplicate it. It can be as simple as building time into your day without screens or any other requirements of your children and seeing what comes of it. They might complain they’re bored at first, but I usually respond by offering one or two options and then reminding them that “their boredom isn’t my problem.” That may sound harsh, but it’s important for our kids to learn how to manage their own boredom if they’re going to be successful adults. And the best play almost always starts from boredom.

Active play helps our kids build their relationships with each other. I had a comment a while back about how well my kids get along, and I just had to laugh. My kids are just like yours and fight as much as any other siblings; but I have found that the more time they have to play together, the better they get along. It makes sense, right? You can’t have a strong relationship with someone if you don’t spend time together. And many of our kids spend more time with their classmates and team members than they do their own siblings. I don’t know about you, but most of my high school buddies are people I’ve lost contact with; at the very least, I’m not as close to them as I was then. But I’m still close to my siblings. I want the same for my kids; I want them to be excited to come home at Christmas because they can’t wait to see their family; I want them to call their sister on the hard days AND the really great ones; I want them to share in each other’s lives even as adults. 

You know when my kids fight the most? When they’re on screens. Even if it’s a “shared” screen experience like X BOX or a family movie, SOMEBODY still ends up fighting. If you feel like your home is lacking peace and is filled with arguing, try taking a break from screens and prioritizing margin for play.

Imaginative play helps our kids express their creativity. This one should be obvious since we are including pretend play in our creativity series, but I still want to park here for a moment and unpack it. Imaginative play allows our children to construct a world of their own. They connect with stories in a new way when they “act them out.” They begin to process their own ideas for what they want the world, their world, to look like. They find what they value and are passionate about. And they see how a team can unpack and build on ideas as they work together with each other in their make-believe world.

There’s so much more I could say on this topic, but I know I’ve probably exhausted your reading stamina for this Monday🤣. There’s so many aspects of creativity we haven’t covered (handicrafts, theater, music, etc.), all of which are important for our children, too, but next I want to turn my attention to some of the nitty-gritty of raising creative kids. How do we deal with the mess? How do we say yes when it’s inconvenient? How do we set up our home so it’s ripe for creating? These are some of the questions we will be unpacking throughout this week as we begin looking at some practical ideas for our home.