What fun roleplay is!

There are times when children speak and do exactly like they were the cheeky engine Thomas, or the show off Lightning Mcqueen or the adventurous Dora, transformers, and some other super hero/heroine characters. They also pretend play like mommy - daddy, teacher - student, police and robber, and anything that fancies them at that point. Lets face it even we used to pretend play! 

There have been studies conducted continuously on the benefits and general effects of roleplay. This particular article from psychologytoday.com(below link) has illustrated on the pros of pretend play. It says that pretend play allows the expression of both positive and negative feelings, cognitive flexibility meaning how they think, imagine and learn and creativity.

Children usually pretend play when they have seen or heard of certain situations, stories etc. This lets them imagine more and make them want to pretend. They pretend to cook, clean and help in the kitchen, pretend to be doctors, or pilots or truck drivers, etc. 

Nowadays most of the preschools have pretend play toys and teachers encourage them to play assuming different roles. Usually at school teachers also explain different roles and guide them into enacting those roles. The best part is they get to assume various roles and learn different things each time. At home, it definitely is always left to them and their favourite roles. Its good as long as they don't get bored. Probably introducing new books and   telling them stories will stimulate their imagination. 

Of course kids need to have a lot of physical activity and challenging activities, but roleplay is also important part of their growing up.

Reference:

 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201203/the-need-pretend-play-in-child-development