What Are the Benefits of Dramatic Play?
When you are 2 1/2 feet tall, countless wonders tantalize your senses.
But, when you are 2 1/2 feet tall, many of them are either off limits or from an imaginary world. Examples are conducting a train, taking care of a newborn baby, or returning home by 11 p.m. in the evening or else you turn into a pumpkin. Dramatic play allows children to explore what they otherwise could not. Meanwhile, they are learning and expressing emotions in a healthy manner.
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Education and therapy through dramatic play
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Dramatic play teaches children everything from differentiation of reality from fantasy to language development. It engages them in scenarios that teach them social skills and problem-solving. It also serves to help children process emotions that they, at their level of maturity, can not otherwise process. And during the time in which they are role playing, they do not realize that they are learning or processing emotions; they are lost in a world of fantasy.
If a child's family is moving to a new home, that child might role play with stuffed animals or other children the action of saying goodbye. Or, perhaps a child tries to grasp the idea that he will have a new sibling; that child might pretend his teddy bear is going to have a cub. In these ways, dramatic play offers children relief from emotional tension, a sense of power, development of social interaction skills, language development and the use of symbols.
Relief from emotional tension
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Adults cope with emotional trauma via communication or expression of themselves with words, whether with family, friends or a therapist. A child does not yet have this skill, and will use dramatic play to relieve tension. Whether with dolls or other children, a child might role play in order to process, for example, the loss of a grandparent.
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A sense of power
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Children re-enact frightening experiences, tending to place themselves in positions of power where they otherwise would be powerless. In dramatic play, children might re-enact an episode where they fell off a swing, but they might choose to play their mother or father who, in reality, took control of the situation. Children can experience what it is like to control events when role playing.
Development of social skills
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Dramatic play encourages children to play roles other than themselves, giving them the experience of looking at life from another's angle. Such role playing helps them master this important social skill as they mature and it becomes necessary. This social skill teaches empathy.
Development of expressive language
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Dramatic play teaches expressive language. Children must convey their thoughts to others and speak from the perspective of their pretend roles. They need to be conscious of the words they choose and therefore experiment with new words. And, it is often through dramatic play that shy children discover their voices.
Symbols
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Dramatic play furthers an understanding of symbols. A doll represents a baby. A piece of paper represents money. This interpretation leads children more easily into the acceptance of letters and numbers as symbols.
Difference between fantasy and reality
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Dramatic play helps children differentiate between fantasy and reality. Wishes that do not come true in real life can come true when role playing. Children can resort to dramatic play to quell an urge to have something they cannot have in real life, like a pet monkey. The key is that they begin to understand that they can only have a pet monkey in a pretend world and that it is not reasonable to actually have a pet monkey.
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