Surely many of you have heard that symbolic play is a very rich type of game for children of development age, but what is it? And why is it so important?
We have all experienced as children the pleasant sensation of playing to be firemen, postmen or policemen. We have also imitated our parents and teachers or we have played to be one of those Disney characters of our time like Mowgli, Mary Poppins or Peter Pan.
We also invented fantastic stories or represented our routines with Playmobil or dolls that moved around the house, climbed on the sofas, we made them talk to each other and even quarreled.
All these best toys and games from our childhood are symbolic games.
Symbolic play favors aspects such as language, empathy and the ability to put oneself in the place of others, abstract thinking, spontaneity, imagination and creativity in children.
But they are also a fantastic game in which you can regulate emotions. When children play to scold their dolls by imitating their teacher, they are managing to be impressed by the authority of the school, from someone outside the family.
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Children regulate their emotions to the extent that they play what impresses them.
Symbolic play is a very important tool that childhood specialists use to assess the developmental level of a child.
It provides us with a lot of information such as:
•The language level of a child according to the richness of his spontaneous productions during the game.
•The ability to empathize and put oneself in the place of others (when a toy baby cries and we may think that he is hungry).
•Fine motor skills (coordination when moving dolls around a house) and gross motor skills (jumping or running when an imaginary shark chases us).
•Intelligence as abstract thinking ability, the ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
•The emotional world of the child that expresses it through toys and games.
•The ability to regulate behavior when you have to tolerate frustrations.
•The imagination and creativity of a child and his ability to create fantastic situations.
Symbolic play is important because it helps develop all the skills we have described above. It is a type of game that allows the overall development of the child.
So we strongly encourage you to play Indians, policemen, dolls and kitchens together.
Playing together is the best experience for your little ones, you are their best toy and the ones who can best help them get the most out of the game.
In addition, sharing the symbolic game will allow you to get to know your children better, they will raise their realities, concerns and fantasies and you can be there to enrich it.
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