Why role-playing is so important for children's development

In role play, children develop valuable social, emotional, creative, and language skills. Role play therefore has a variety of positive effects on the development of the youngest:

• In role play, children can test different courses of action to solve problems and understand events. Children process their fears and experiences through role play.

• Anything is possible in play! Children love to transform into supermen and superwomen. It feels good to not be the small, weak, or ignorant one for a change. That gives strength and courage for real life and also boosts self-esteem.

• Children learn to put themselves in other people's shoes and see the world through different eyes

• In role play with other children, your little ones strengthen their communication and interaction skills. They have to express themselves well, respond to others, resolve conflicts, and find compromises. In connection with their role, children learn how to deal with rules. They understand the purpose of rules in play and follow them even when they might not adhere to them in everyday life.

• A role play offers your child a platform to act out their inner conflicts. In doing so, they can also process behaviors that are considered undesirable.

• Experiences and feelings can be processed in role play: for example, your children try out how a doctor's visit will go, or they play the rescuing firefighter after witnessing a fire.

• Developing ever-new imaginative roles and play scenarios promotes and shapes creativity — a trait that remains centrally important in adulthood.

• In role play, children not only try out different roles. When they imagine fictional situations and anticipate others' actions, they also train their ability to simulate — and thus the important capacity for abstraction, a crucial prerequisite for intellectual achievements.

Would you like to learn more about role play and its contribution to child development? In our interview with Dr. Jan-David Freund, Product Manager in the HABA Learning Program, we explored the topic further.

Role play for children of all ages

Role play in toddlers and kindergarten

Around the age of three, toddlers begin to engage in role play. At first they develop simple ideas and stories with no more than two actors. 'Pretend play' is also very popular among young toddlers. They repurpose all kinds of objects and assign them special meanings depending on what they need at the moment. The spoon that just served as a phone can half an hour later become the plow with which the farmer tills the grain field. Maybe you went on a trip to the countryside a few days earlier, which echoes in this play. From these 'pretend games', role play gradually develops: your children take their doll for a walk as mom or dad or put the teddy to bed. While the very young are more likely to play such scenes alone, role play in kindergarten and preschool age evolves into increasingly complex enactments involving several participants. By the time they start their fourth year of life, when children have begun speaking, additional skills for role play emerge. At this age they learn to separate real events from role play. Around the fifth birthday they are then able to plan a game from the beginning and develop different plotlines.

Role play in primary school children

In primary school age, role play skills continue to develop. Children think together about play ideas and decide who is allowed to join and who is not. Alongside imaginary role play, dramatized play often appears. This is sometimes encouraged in primary school, where teachers prompt children to develop and perform small plays. Perhaps you also remember your first performance at a school festival in front of an audience?

How to support children in role play

Since role play has many positive effects on your children's development and is part of the natural learning process, you as parents should do your best to actively support your offspring in role play. Often not much is necessary. In their development children find their way into the world of role play all by themselves. Parents may — if the little ones ask — gladly play along and go shopping in the pretend shop, play Kasper in the puppet theater, or pretend to be the evil attacker of the knight's castle. It's important not to suppress role play. Also, you should always leave the directing of role play to your children. Don't try to impose a role on your kids. It is often very interesting to observe which roles the little ones slip into. That says a lot about what occupies children in their everyday life. Suitable props provide great play ideas. Here you can provide sets such as play tents, play rugs or play kitchens. You can also provide a trunk with suitable worn clothing, scarves, jewelry, or hats from mom and dad — a treasure trove of ideas for the little ones. Especially at the beginning, ordinary everyday objects are often incorporated into the play. There are no limits to imagination here.

5 creative role-play ideas for children

Shopkeeper:The play shop is a classic among role plays. Children love to stand behind the counter and offer parents or their friends the latest little items. Whether apples, bread or toothpaste — in the shop in the child's room you can find almost everything adults buy at the supermarket. Of course, the cash register is used to settle accounts properly at the end. Sometimes the kids themselves prefer to do the shopping. Then they grab the shopping basket and pack to their heart's content. HABA offers you great play shops with a wide selection of accessories and props.

Cook/Chef: At mom and dad's, the little ones see it every day — in the kitchen there's busy cooking, baking and preparing. Since children can't yet imitate all the steps in the real kitchen, a play kitchen is ideal. Here the offspring becomes a master chef in no time. And all without the danger of being hurt by sharp kitchen knives or the stove. So that the delicacies can be served in the end, the matching dishes must of course not be missing.

Family:A popular role play is the 'mother, father, child' game, in which family life is imitated. Dolls are often involved here, dolls are included, which are cared for and taken for rides in a doll pram. Very important for this play is often the involvement of playmates of the same age.

Construction worker: Construction workers build great things. First, measurements are taken with the folding ruler, then pieces are sawn, and then screwed together at the workbench with the hand screwdriver. All this is possible for little ones too — with children's tool benches and toy tools, children work like grown-ups and develop their fine motor skills.

Knight/Princess: A dream in glitter and pink — who hasn't wanted to be a princess at least once? Dressed up with pretty necklaces and fancy dresses, being a princess is especially fun. Or a brave knight with a wooden sword and helmet? Everyone can be anything! Always let your children choose their roles. The appropriate play environment is created by corresponding play tents.

Role play for children at Carnival

A perfect occasion for role play and dressing up is children's carnival.Carnival costumes for children, which you can easily make yourself. It's best to browse our wide selection together with your kids and get inspired.

Interview with Dr. Jan-David Freund about role play, children and Carnival

The trained psychologist specializing in developmental psychology, Dr. Jan-David Freund, works for the HABA company family as a Product Manager in the HABA Learning Program and in the Spiel & Buch editorial team.

What do we mean when we talk about role play in children?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Role play, in the classical sense, is a mix — or you could call it a special form — of fantasy play and 'as-if' play. And it is actually a technical term: 'as-if play'. The core is already contained in the words fantasy or 'as-if' play. Children use their imagination and act as if something were different. For example, as if they had a different role. They might reenact a profession they know from the adult world. Or they act as if they were older, younger, grandparents or even an animal. Or they act as if the world worked differently. Then a plate becomes a steering wheel for the car or a broom can not only sweep but also fly.

What are the 'classics' in role play?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: It's very typical to imitate what one observes in everyday life: parents' behavior, daily routines, processes in kindergarten or professions one encounters — for example when accompanying someone to the post office and seeing how people behave at the counter. Of course, children also take in the world a lot through picture books or stories, for example in the 'Sendung mit der Maus'. When they observe a sequence there, they absorb it, form their own thoughts about it, and understand it in a quite different way than we might when observing. And then they want to try it out: 'What is it like if I bring people the packages? Will they be happy when they receive a package from me?' … That's the classic form of role play.

So do we adults see ourselves mirrored in children's role plays?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Children are a mirror for parents. When children play a role game, you sometimes discover things you would never have seen in yourself and it is often very amusing. Hearing expressions repeated by your own children can be incredibly funny. But sometimes you also notice: that's true, in that situation I always placate my child and say, 'Wait, it's not your turn yet. That can't happen now.' Here you observe children picking up exactly that. And sometimes they reflect embarrassing behaviors back at us. Not least for this reason there's a basic rule: don't cross the street on red when a child is nearby, because otherwise children learn: 'Oh, adults are allowed to do that. It must be interesting. I'll try that too.'

Why are role plays so important for our children? What do they experience and learn through them?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: With almost all children you can observe that if they have the opportunity, they start doing role plays. This is a very old learning mechanism. Children always try to imitate adult life and the adult world to find out how they themselves would cope and what role they play in the world. And also to empathize with different roles and reach their limits. Sometimes you only realize, for example when trying to cook something, what the difficulties are. Children naturally are always engaged in role playing. You have to give them a bit of freedom to get there — so don't structure everything. Then children will do it all by themselves. It's also important that children play roles. Only by practicing taking others' perspectives do you begin to think about what thoughts, wishes, and ideas others have. And by thinking these thoughts you train skills that are incredibly important for being successful and happy in life.

What skills — besides empathy — does role play influence?

J.-D. Freund: In role play, children also have to steer their own feelings into a certain channel. This can be quite difficult for children. But if you want to take on a particular role, you might pretend to be angry about something. That's just acted. But this way of presenting your feelings differently than they really are, of sometimes directing them and saying, 'Now I'm really angry that this happened,' even though it's actually only my role that's bothered and not me personally, is quite a challenge and an important competence. As adults we often have to keep our emotions under control, not show when we're frustrated in certain moments, or concentrate even though our minds are on a thousand other things. This self-regulation and containment of one's own feelings is an important skill children need.

And of course communication: when you coordinate what you want to play, children have to be able to explain exactly what they mean. That can be quite complicated sometimes; when something is in your head, thoughts run wild. How do I phrase it so the other person understands? Perhaps also: how do I convince someone that the game should continue in this direction? The other might suggest, 'Now we repair the car.' And I say, 'No, we've arrived. We're having a picnic now.' Here you have to negotiate how the game proceeds. You must come up with better arguments so the other says, 'Okay, we'll have a picnic now.' Or you have to find a compromise and say, 'You repair the car now and I'll prepare our picnic in the meantime.'

All these skills — communication, negotiation, empathy — are things you also need in everyday situations. And in a certain way they are also role play, because you fulfill a role or occupy a particular role in relation to others. You must apply all these skills to see what roles the others have and what your function is in relation to them. Children are not able to analyze this; they do it intuitively, and it becomes easier the more practice they have.

So does role play have not only an individual but also a societal aspect?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Role play even has many important societal aspects. On the one hand, it passes on certain patterns. Like: how do we behave in some situations? Much of what we teach children is not explicit — we don't say, 'This is how you behave at the post office or in a certain situation' — but it is observed, tried out, and practiced. Mistakes made in role play may not then be made in real life. Understanding 'how our society actually works' is definitely part of role play. It's a good testing ground for that.

And the skills promoted in role play are, of course, skills we need elsewhere in life as well — in private life with the relationships we have, with the desires of others that we want to consider or need to understand. But also in professional life: there are so many things in there that you must be able to do. If all of that is exhausting because you haven't internalized it, you can't behave naturally or handle things calmly. Then everything becomes much more tiring.

It's better if you have learned all this in a natural way. You are also more content in life if you can do these things instinctively because you acquired them playfully. And in the end society benefits from individuals who function well personally, get along with others, and communicate so that others understand them precisely, avoiding talking past each other. Then better results are achieved.

Do children need adults during role play, or are we more of a hindrance?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: I think this varies. Children very much like to involve adults in role play. Often children approach adults and assign the parents a role: 'You are this; you do that in my game...' But adults are often not flexible enough because children switch between different thematic worlds very quickly. A rocket suddenly turns into a house and the parents can't keep up. Here adults can be a bit of a brake. But that doesn't mean you can't play along a little.

I also want to stand up for those parents who don't feel like repeating the same two sentences for three hours just because their children insist: 'Your role now is to say hello, put the food on the table and tell us what we're eating.' That can be very boring and very annoying. Or when you have to do the same thing over a long time in an uncomfortable position. For children it's interesting. They vary things and try: 'If I change it a bit, what comes of it?' But it can get on your nerves. And I think children benefit from relaxed parents, especially in phases where parental involvement in shaping the play increases again.

Children among themselves don't have such a big problem. They are very flexible: when the play world changes, they simply switch with it. They do it in seconds. You should have the courage as an adult to withdraw from the play and let children play together. They can coordinate that very well.

Should we set limits regarding stereotypes, entrenched gender roles or violence? Or do children need more freedom and do we all need more composure?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: I would suggest that you sometimes keep an ear on what is going on when children play a role game. On the one hand, because it gives a fascinating insight into the inner life, observations and the world of children. You don't see everything children take in. And so you might notice: 'Oh, that sounds interesting.' Or: 'That perhaps doesn't sound so good. I should ask what's behind that.' So I would look at what the children are playing. You don't have to stay with them all the time, but occasionally listen in.

As for gender stereotypes: I think it's a great example of how you can start an interesting discussion through children's play. If you observe that children play mother, father, child and the father is told: 'No, you mustn't make the food. That's what mom has to do,' it's a great opportunity to ask questions or gently challenge that cliché and say: 'Why can't dad do that? Do you think that's bad? Or are there dads who cook?' You can very nicely bring up topics that might otherwise have little space in everyday life. You can show different possibilities. But in the end it won't help if you live exactly the opposite and children continue to imitate what they observe.

When it comes to rougher types of play: if kids wrestle or tickle — as long as everyone is having fun, you don't have to intervene. It's part of children's play. But violence in games should never be supported or tolerated. There are other theories that children should be allowed to let out aggression. But I would say: we live in a society where violence has no place. There is no area where we endorse someone committing real violence. Children also try things out: what happens if I take something from someone or hit them. Here I would always set clear boundaries and, if necessary, interrupt the game. I would not let it continue, but clearly show the children: that is no longer part of the game. Not everyone is having fun anymore. Violence would be a boundary for me, and the other things can serve as a starting point for discussion, but you don't have to prohibit them.

Can we parents create a good environment for our children's role play?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Children sometimes need a little nudge to get into role play. Sometimes it's enough to suggest to children to play a fantasy game and then their imagination gets going and they come up with great ideas. This actually works almost anywhere if children are used to it. You just have to start and show them: for example, how you can find a fantasy game while sitting on the train. What could you suddenly do here? And children's imagination is boundless once it's awakened. But sometimes they need that initial spark: 'Oh right, I can pretend on the train that we're actually sitting in a spaceship.' And then it starts...

And you can also create situations where it's easier for children to get into play. This includes, for example, having dress-up clothes at home. They don't have to be expensive. You can really use all kinds of things, worn-out clothes or whatever. There's plenty to be found. Children are capable of imagining anything. But it's easier to get into play if you have at least one or two items that give them a bit of a handle.

You can also suggest, for example: 'If you like, I'll put on music that fits your game.' In this way children can express themselves even more. It might be a bit tiring because if the themes change quickly the music would have to change quickly too. But it's at least one way to give them another bit of freedom.

Furthermore, children simply need free spaces, time periods in which no structured game is played or something is learned, but where there is time for role play. So there must sometimes be a gap that the children can fill.

And I would say: other children are the best counterpart, because role play is ultimately always a social game. So it's important to give children enough opportunities to play with other children. We have had a year where that was more difficult. But I think, generally and in the future, bringing children together so they can play is a nice foundation for role play.

Should we as parents deliberately steer role-play topics?

D. J.-D. Freund: If you observe that children pick up a topic particularly strongly in role play, that's something parents can also take up. If children are currently very occupied with the topic of school and play school, you can reenact something from the context of school. You could ask, 'Would you like to have homework sometime?' That might be something parents wouldn't think of because they don't have such a positive association with homework. But if it's an important topic for the children at the moment, it can be lovely to pick it up and offer something like that. Children take it up with enthusiasm. It's a good suggestion for parents to do something with the children that really preoccupies them right now.

Does role play boost imagination?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Children are very flexible in how they design their role plays. In their imagination they can conjure something out of an object that adults would never have discovered. That goes far beyond what is actually visible and is limited only by imagination.

I remember: we had planned a time-travel journey for a children's birthday. The journey was completely imaginary and then we landed with the dinosaurs. We thought the children would have to imagine something at this point, and wondered: 'How do we do this? How do we give the children a point of reference for the world of dinosaurs?' Nothing really occurred to us. So we thought we'd just say: 'Oh, a dinosaur has flown by.' From the moment we said 'Oh, a dinosaur has flown by', it exploded around us. All the children saw dinosaurs somewhere and could describe them in great detail. We had thought beforehand that we couldn't stage this well for the children. But that was completely unnecessary. The children elaborated it. That far exceeded our expectations. We even had to bring them back because our time-travel journey had other stations and we didn't want to stay only with the dinosaurs. But the children didn't stop discovering new, exciting dinosaurs and telling us what kind they could be, because they knew one dinosaur or another. Children are great at making a lot out of very little.

Are role plays better indoors or outdoors?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Role plays actually work well indoors too. But outdoors there are often completely different stimuli. I would view role play as both indoor and outdoor. Sure, indoors you can perhaps dress up better. You have a large selection, a stock of costumes and can change quickly. But outdoors you have all the natural materials or objects that you can transform into something exciting. Natural materials are less predetermined. More of your own input comes. If you have a ready-made costume, it already suggests what you play with it. A tricorn hat might be a pirate, an admiral, or a robber, and there may be three or four other possibilities. But it somehow limits what you can do with that hat. You can of course change the costume, but the hat itself is not as open as, for example, an interestingly shaped stone with a nice pattern, a special stick or a feather you find outside. Those are much more open and more of the children's imagination flows into the play.

What is the significance of Carnival in the context of role play?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Carnival is a mix. In Carnival we have on the one hand the classic role play. After all, the origin of Carnival is slipping into different roles. Reversing roles in society and stepping into a role you don't usually occupy, and seeing: 'What is the world like when everything is suddenly upside down?' Carnival also has the component of simply dressing up and following certain traditions and rituals. But that doesn't prevent anyone from fully living Carnival with lots of role play and returning to its roots. I would encourage everyone to play Carnival with as much real role play as possible and not just dress up out of tradition and leave it at that. You have to fill it with life to get a lot out of Carnival.

What was your favorite costume as a child?

Dr. J.-D. Freund: Most often I was dressed as a doctor and ran around with a doctor's bag and coat. I even had my own doctor name that was always used for these games. A funny anecdote: the vowels in my first name occur in the same order a-a-i as in 'salami'. There was a situation where someone shouted, 'Where's the salami?' I misheard the question from the next room and answered, 'Here I am.' After that I had the nickname 'Doctor Salami'. When I wore the costume, I was Doctor Salami to the family. At first I was annoyed about it. But eventually I embraced it and the name even appeared on my coat. So that was my nickname for that costume.

Image credits

Toddler listens to a toy doll with a stethoscope in bed in the bedroom © natalialeb - stock.adobe.com

Boy plays with a wooden dollhouse that stands on the table © kostikovanata - stock.adobe.com

Father and son play in the park, with a dinosaur costume © oneinchpunch - stock.adobe.com