While searching for a right nursery for my three-year-old kid, lately I noticed almost all day-care, pre-school and early education centres have a costume box and role play stations. We all loved playing role play during our childhood, remember?

It is a known fact that children love role playing. They’ll pick get-ups, create dialogue, and use their toys or household items to create characters. Children will pretend to be almost anything they enjoy being. This process of taking on roles and discovering new identities is an important part of their personality and coherent development.

In our family and professional lives, when we need to think about a problem in our own way or understand other’s perspective, we sit back quietly and give it a thought. But how do we create objective thoughts? What tools we use to think differently, from an unbiased perspective?  People do have different perspective. Understanding how other could think is a logical skill, just like any other skill that can be honed, and the sooner it is introduced, the more beneficial it will be in child’s development. Playing a role is like ‘asking yourself’ how others might feel or reply or counter act in a particular situation.

Children enjoy it as a game but if you pay attention, you will find that they are using their understanding and trying to comprehend how the other person will think and react. This type of game includes applying emotional and logical intelligence and thus will help children be more reasonable, tactful and empathetic as they evolve. Not only this, role play also helps children in making career choices. Although we must never push a kid to make a haste decision and also not necessarily, they will become what role they assume while playing as kids, it helps them gauge their potential and makes them aware of possibilities in future.

They love playing doctors, pilots, teachers and many more, though mostly it has been found that children like to play doll-house or Kitchen-set the most in role play games.

Because home and family are the heart of human collaboration (interaction). They use their families, books and illustrations to make sense of what it means to be a ‘mamma’ or ‘papa’. These are not just games but an understanding, an experience that will stay with them for a long time and shape their relationships in coming future. Playing house or festivals with children from different cultural background and different family set up can serve to expand their meaning and expectations of the term ‘family’. The idea will help them have inclusive group, where they treat each other with equality and empathy despite of their gender or religious preferences. In this pretending play, kids reconnoitre what it’s like to be a contributing member of a family and understand family dynamics in a play way. And this, shapes their perception and idea of a happy family/society.

If you ask me, I love playing kitchen sets with my kid. It is a delightful and satiating experience to watch your little one pretend to prepare a dish or bake a cake for you. Cooking is a survival skill that is important regardless of your child’s gender. These small role plays based on household chores help them to assume responsibilities, understand self-control as an adult and shape a well-managed future for them.

Helping people lead happy lives. – Nileema Jhunjhunwala