Role-play
activities at home and school are significant learning times. Children are
developing brain skills that allow them to pay attention, remember rules, and
problem– solve. These skills are known as executive function skills, and they
are essential for any learning.
In role-play
activities, children develop language
and social skills. These are not skills learned in a circle-time lesson.
Children learn language and social skills by interacting with other people.
Role-play allows children to try new words and behaviors to get feedback from
their peers.
Role-play
also allows children to practice particular emotion-driven behaviors such as
creating, fixing, nurturing, and teaching. These are also basic building blocks
of future learning and work. Again, these cannot be taught with worksheets at
tables. Instead, children learn through experiment, practice, and interaction.
Role-play might be the most critical part of a young child’s day!
It is also
essential to look at what role play does NOT do. It does not predict what a
child will be interested in at a later date. Young children try on many
different roles to learn from them and to see what fits and what doesn’t fit.
My daughter loved playing with trucks and wearing construction hard-hats. As a
three-year-old, when we passed road crews, she insisted that was what she
wanted to be when she grew up. I did not put too much stock in this as I knew
she also wanted to be a mermaid. As an adult, she is an elementary music and
art teacher. However, playing with building toys and fixing toys as a child may
have encouraged her to be interested in tools. She is the person in her family
who is most likely to make a house repair, and I am proud to see that.
Role-play
also does not push a child in a particular direction. It is not an indicator of
gender confusion, nor will it encourage it. My son played with his sister’s
dolls and dress-up clothing. He tried on many different roles, but it did not
mess with his understanding of who God created him to be. I like to think that
he practiced the skills of nurturing, which put him in a good position as a
school IT person. He has infinite patience working with teachers and students
when computers don’t work. I know this because I am one of those teachers.
When boys
play with what we typically consider to be girlish toys or when girls play
within boy dominated play areas, we might be tempted to worry that they are
confused about their gender. In fact, true gender dysphoria is very rare and
shows itself in much stronger symptoms. When children play, they are learning
and growing, testing and trying, and developing in the way God designed their
brains to mature.
Especially
in a world where screens around every turn tempt children, role play is more
important now than ever before. Parents and teachers should encourage
role-play, as well as other play that involves children interacting with each
other at every opportunity.
