The Benefits of Imaginative Play

The world of childhood is a magical world. The world is a far different place for a child than an adult - children need time to allow their play to unfold – to dream their stories, to stretch their limbs, to run and climb, to dig in the mud – all good kindergarten teachers know the benefits of imaginative play. Children are born with a natural ability to play, from a very young age they will begin to imitate the adults around them - and play is born.

The imagination of natural play is awakened with simple toys and materials: a piece of blue silk becomes a river, the sky, a fairies wings, a cloak; simple blocks become a fairytale castle, a zoo, a house; a tent becomes a cubby house, a dragon’s cave, a doorway to another land. Natural and simple toys is preserve the space for children's imaginations. In their interaction with the forms and soft colours, children learn to enliven them with their own imaginative abilities and to provide them with everything they need for the game in question. Children at play decide whether a doll is a farm girl on her way to milk the cows, or a princess setting out on a journey. Battery-operated and moulded plastic toys details “do” the imagining for the child.

Think of the imagination as a muscle that needs exercising – a well-developed imagination will assist children in their future education and to lead a creative and fulfilling adult life. Every human being has the faculty of “Imagination” – the ability to imagine, to dream, to create, to have an artistic bent – our responsibility is to awaken it. Only then can it become a valuable companion throughout our entire lives – providing flexibility, warmth, inspiration, creativity and vision in adult life, where too often we find a one-sided intellectual approach. Using imagination means the ability to see something that is not directly in front of you or, or adding something to what is in front of you from within you. Children still have direct access to this creative ability because they have not yet allowed themselves to be constrained by the narrow boundaries of reality.

Toys that provide children with everything in detail, that tell children how they should respond or give a defined image of how they think they should be, interfere with their own self image and ability to think freely. If we assist children to use their imaginations while they are still young, then they will be able to deal much more creatively with whatever confronts them later in life. Imagination is not simply about “fantasy”, it is about developing the qualities of our whole self as a human being – allowing our true self to unfold, our thinking to be independent of what the media tells us we should be, our hands to be creative with whatever task they find before them.

So before you shop for toys ask yourself if this toy will allow your child to play or simply do all the work itself.