filed under: Family Life, Imaginative Play Outdoors, Organizing Tips & Tricks

The Importance Of Dress Up Play

If play is truly the work of the child, then dress up play must be the ultimate job description! Imaginative, fantasy play is achievable when just a few props are thrown into the mix. At this time of year costumes and accessories are everywhere.

I hope to encourage you to get that Halloween bin out early, or keep it out past Halloween, to take advantage of the enthusiasm kids have for fantasy play during the Fall season.

Play Research

Researchers who study play tells us that creative and open-ended play allows children the freedom to express their imaginations in a way that teaches the brain to be flexible. As a teacher and mother, I’ve seen how fantasy play and imaginative role-playing are precursors to divergent and original problem solving (which also happen to be skills that are well recognized in highly effective students!)

If you listen in on the fantasy play of children, you’ll hear how they work out the stress and frustration of their day through this type of play. Experts tell us this type of play also provides opportunities to practice communicating in challenging relationships.

I’ve also seen how an emerging understanding of conscience develops through dress up play, and studies have shown that children who engage in role play end up learning empathy (because they can literally imagine what it might be like to walk in someone else’s shoes).

The Academic Value Of Play

Don’t forget that your child’s teacher will thank you too!

Playing dress up provides plenty of unhurried time to practice tying bows, working with zippers and fastening buttons. (Skills that are not always automatic for kids once they enter school.) And all that symbolic thinking (using a blanket as a cape or a stick as a magic wand) leads to way bigger problem solving abilities in mathematics later on.

The storytelling that goes hand in hand with dressing up (even if it is a familiar narrative from a movie or other media) is linked to greater abilities in reading and writing for years to come. Playing dress up flexes the academic muscles for sure, but also the emotional ones.

Teachers will appreciate your child’s social and emotional strengths that have come from learning to problem solve cooperatively, negotiate, and make positive decisions in fantasy play.

Super Hero and Risky Play

My own kids were big on playing dress up. My oldest was Superman for the entire summer he was three. He slept, ate and played in that costume for longer than I care to reveal. While superhero play can sometimes be rigid and set in plot or story line, it allows boys, in particular, to experiment with power, control and right or wrong.

In addition, superhero, police man or monster play includes an element of risky play that is just plain good for kids: jumping off beds, leaping across rooms and all that rough and tumble wrestling is known to actually help kids learn to self-regulate.

Taking the super hero play outdoors adds even more positive outcomes to childhood development: an improved sense of self-worth and independence as well as confidence and physical exercise not seen in sedentary play.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of risky play, check out the resources at Outdoor Play Canada, or read my posts on Risky Play here.

Costume Organization

Shop kids costumes for everyday dress up or Halloween at low prices!

We purchase a commercially made costume for each child about once a year, around Halloween. The rest of the year, the kids make up costumes, mix and match from last year’s stuff or just invent what they need for the part they want to play. Face paints can add a real dimension of fun (and time motor skills development) to the play too!

As for keeping it all organized? Soft sided bins make for quick access and easy clean up of accessories and costume bits and pieces with small children. As you find fun items that could be used for dress up you can easily add to the pile without having to haul the “Halloween box” down from the attic.

Keep the costumes handy, buy second hand throughout the year, and ask for hand me downs from friends and family. When it’s time for clean up, just toss it all in the bin. Older children may benefit from a trunk or designated drawers in their closet that are devoted to costume storage to keep those accessories close by for theme days, like crazy hat day, at school.

Looking for a good source for costumes? Check out Halloween Costumes.com for plenty of off season deals.