This is an #ad from Hasbro – 3 Ways to Encourage Your Child’s Imagination
Imaginary play may seem like something that just comes naturally to children, but seeing how differently my two daughters play, I’ve learned that their creativity and imagination need to be encouraged and nourished.
If you are looking for some new ways to encourage your child’s imagination, I have rounded up a few that I’ve found helpful over the years.
3 Ways to Encourage Your Child’s Imagination
If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that downtime and alone time are very important for the development of both children and adults. In order to be confident in front of others, you first have to be confident alone and in your own skin.
My youngest has always been one of those confident kids that can sit and talk with her dolls for hours. My oldest always wants somebody else to play with her because she feels uncomfortable talking amongst her toys without another human present. Regardless of their comfort levels, we (my husband and I) have always encouraged alone time and imaginary play for our girls.
Here are a few ways that we encourage our children’s imagination:
Provide Toys that Encourage Imaginary Play
My youngest daughter absolutely loves to dress up and pretend she’s a Disney Princess. She is in love with Hasbro’s line of Disney Princess Royal Shimmer Fashion Dolls because of how fancy they look. But I love that with these dolls, she can express her own style and create her own own stories with the characters.
Parents – Shop the Disney Princess Line Here.
Each Disney Princess has a beautiful shiny outfit covered in sparkles. My daughter loves acting out little scenes with her dolls and putting herself right in the middle of the fairytales.
Allow Kids to be Bored
How many times a day do you hear the phrase, “I’m bored” from your kids? I probably hear it at least 3-5 times a day from my oldest and maybe twice from my youngest.
My response to my children is always, “find something to do.” I encourage them to get off of their devices and start cleaning their rooms. I find that when they start cleaning their rooms, they end up finding toys, books, or games that they forgot they had and go down a rabbit hole of imaginary play. Of course, the goal was never to get them to have a spotless room, the goal was to get them to play!
“Remind yourself that free play has been shown to boost confidence, problem-solving skills, resilience, social-emotional connections, and more.” – Melissa Bernstein
Turn Things into a Game/Challenge
I have always made even the most mundane tasks into a game, song, or challenge around our house. Even from the time my daughters were babies – we had diaper changing song, a bath time song, a cleanup song, etc. It has really encouraged my girls to do the same with their friends and even with each other.
When something around the house needs to be done, my oldest will usually take it upon herself to lead the way and turn it into a game or challenge. For example, “whoever can pick up 10 things the fastest wins.”
By making things more fun around the house, kids tend to associate happy memories with things like chores and cleaning up. That way when it’s time for them to do it on their own, they are comfortable enough to have a moment inside their own heads while cleaning.
