Label The Pretend

How you can help a child get comfortable with the idea of pretend play.

Learning Seeds Engagement Strategies

Comic Strip by Cynthia Yuan Cheng

Challenging Moment: When pretending feels like a trick or an uncomfortable distortion of what is real to a child, they may miss out on the rewards of imaginary play.

A Strategy to Try: Label The Pretend

Often this can be eased by overlabeling everything as “pretend”. When a child objects to a peer calling a block a “cake”, a caring adult can invite that child to join the pretending by confirming that it’s a block, but sharing that the peer is pretending it’s a cake. “It’s a real block and it’s now it’s also pretend cake! I’m going to take a pretend bite.”

What Happens: The child is less likely to leave or avoid the experience of pretend play, and more likely to stay engaged.