How Playing Dress-Up Shapes Your Child
A dragon, a princess, a superhero, a fairy. When kids get into dress-up, their imaginations can transform them into whatever they want to be. What was once your little boy, is now a pirate ordering his brother to walk the plank. Your sweet little girl is now a witch dropping snakes and frogs into a cauldron. And although it may appear as just a precious moment, when your child dons that cape, he is developing in ways you can’t even imagine.
Believe it or not, dress-up play is vital to a child’s development. According to licensed child psychologist Dr. Laurie Zelinger, “It fosters the imaginative processes, and allows for play without rules or script. Dress up allows for experimentation, role play and fantasy. For a psychologist, it also tells us about possible inner conflicts or trauma, based upon the child's expression of the role they play.”
So how can you create an instant wardrobe for your imaginative child? Zelinger suggests these items that won’t have you running to seven different stores or cleaning out the checking account. The best costumes pieces, she adds, are those that can serve several functions.
- A bath towel or receiving blanket can become a cape, a turban, a baby blanket or table cloth.
- A flimsy elastic waist skirt can become a fancy dress or bride’s veil when worn on the head.
- A tool belt can be a holster.
- Sunglasses are often used for glamour, as are long gloves, and sparkly strands of beads for necklaces.
- Hats of all kinds make an important accent (washable is best).
- Aprons and scarves.
- And of course, don’t be afraid to break out the Halloween costumes
“Such play is a window into a child’s mind and indicates where they are developmentally,” says Dr. Keith Kanner, licensed clinical child, adolescent, and adult psychologist, and Host of San Diego’s Fox6 News Show Your Family Matters. “As with any age, play is symbolic of and used for psychological growth and is the child’s way of practicing new ways of understanding their minds, relationships, and the world around them,” adds Kanner. Dress-up play (for three to five year olds in particular), he explains, represents three new developmental themes: gender role identification, the growing and changing of interpersonal relationships, and conscience development.
Kanner explains that play surrounding gender identification is often displayed by little boys dressing up as fathers, workmen, superheroes, and firemen and for girls, as the princess, mother, school teacher, dancer, and business person. Of course, the child will most often mimic what their parents emulate. Says Kanner, “In personal relationship development, you may see your child “playing house,” whereby the children often have multiple roles such as husband, wife, and mother and father.” And for conscience development, be on the lookout for dress-up play that has rules by which the players abide, demonstrating how during this time, the child’s conscience is in a period of formation.
So think twice before throwing out that hat you never wear or tossing the scratched pair of sunglasses. Not only may they be the next coveted wardrobe accoutrements, they might help your child make better decisions in his future!
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Comments from readers
Many of us enjoyed dressing up as children, and neglect to realise that we would still enjoy it, if we allow ourselves to loosen up a bit and just be silly for awhile (how many of us *don't* enjoy dressing snazzy for an evening out, for example?). My children love it when I put on one of my wigs and a silly dress bought at a thrift store, my husband's old clothes and a huge old floppy hat, or whatever else is at hand, and become a part of the pretend world that they create. This shows them that we can still have fun and just laugh and be silly, regardless of age.
I love putting together "space outfits", "pirate outfits", etc., and joining my children in play. This given them the benefit of mom joining them in their sillies, but in a way I get even more out of it: I am able to let go of my stress and just enjoy living in a world of their creation. We do not realise how far we have left the world of imagination behind until we arrive there again.
Anything can "set the stage" for the worlds they create. As an example, last Saturday my children wanted to dress up as "space explorers". This led them to wanting to "explore that new planet" they had heard about at the Planetarium on Friday. So I went next door to ask our neighbors if we could please have the refrigerator box (from a new fridge delivery) that they had set out for trash collection that morning (they said yes). I covered it in aluminum foil (from the 99 cent store, which I keep in our Crafts & Creations Box), covered our clothes in aluminum foil, and helped lay out blankets around the living room (that is what the ground looked like on the new planet). Our "space helmets" --as per my children's suggestions-- were a bicycle helmet, an old lightweight motorcycle helmet (which I picked up at my then-5 y.o. son's behest from a garage sale, for $2.00), a colander and a veggie steamer (the kind that opens like a flower, with the holder in the middle unscrewed from the bottom). They wanted me to be the "explorer robot", so I wore an old silver shirt-dress (thrift store), roller skates (my son told me, "Mom, robots don't walk, they roll around everywhere!") and leftover silver make-up from Halloween (which they applied for me). It was a rather huge production for what some might consider "dress up", but if they had never wanted the space outfits, we would never have landed on a new planet! :)
I love the fact that my children always ask me to play dress-up with them, and I treasure every fleeting moment of their childhood in which I am able to be an active part of the worlds they create, whether it is something as simple as being royalty, or something as elaborate as going to a newly discovered planet. I feel more parents should get involved; playing dress-up is a wonderful way to connect with your children, and see the world around us in a softer (and more beautiful) light.