Let's Pretend

Dora, Peppa, Batman, Ben 10… if your kids are in character, they’re more likely to help around the house

- Yeshe Colliver

“Archie! Don’t run away. You should be in bed already and we still need to brush your teeeeeth!”

Your 4-year-old runs down the hallway without his pants on, knocking over that leaning tower of laundry.

Around the world, the impacts of COVID-19 have left some parents with more time with their children, but fewer resources to make it interesting as children go stir crazy.

Luckily, there’s a fun and an evidence-backed way to get your kids to try harder at the things you ask them to do, persist at them longer, and be stimulated—you just have to pretend!

Without a minute to establish an imaginary narrative beforehand, it’s a struggle to get my 3-year-old to pack away his toys after play. So we end up being excavators, dumping those ‘rocks’ into the box. And there almost always has to be some interesting plot twist to keep it challenging: a villain with a wrecking ball, or a cat that gets trapped. Recent research shows why this works:

IMAGINATION IS CHALLENGING, AND FUN

If a child is acting out (doing the opposite of what they know they should be doing), they often need more of a challenge. According to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, a leading theorist on child development, imagination drives children’s development at precisely the age when reality can no longer keep up with their curiosity. This age is from around 2 to 7 years.