Influence of Pretend Play on Development of Childrens Creativity - Coursework Example

INFLUENCE OF PRETEND PLAY ON DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY by Sur Influence of Pretend Play on Development of Children’s Creativity A game is the main occupation of children. The study of its origin as a special kind of human activity gives the opportunity to define its essence: a game is an imaginative and valid reflection of life, just in a slightly different space, in which a new fantastic reality is created with the help of imagination, subconscious and mind in their synchronic interaction. In this respect pretend play appears to be one of the most interesting types of games from the perspective of its true meaning for the general development of a child and for the development of his or her creativity in particular. Indeed, fantasy as a key component of creativity takes an active part in the creating of imaginary characters, scenery and even the smallest details of made-up stories. Nevertheless, child’s involvement in pretend play does not mean that his or her creativity is developing or just supposes the creative results of pretending to be manifested only over time, not immediately. One way or another, the analysis of numerous researches, conducted for clarity of the value of pretend play in enchancement of children’s creativity reveal a variety of objective and subjective factors affecting the establishment of the results of these researches. In this context we are faced with a number of conflicting evaluations of the correlation between pretend play and development of children’s creativity. In this assignment we address two main research studies including empirical evidence of great many current observations and experiments on the topic of pretend play and its influence on children’s development and children’s creativity, namely: Russ & Wallace, and Lillard et al. So, after drilling down of the analyzed issue we come to the conclusion made by the authors of the essays. The conflicting evidence of numerous experiments provided in the researches suggests that there is no possibility for appearance of clear results because of possible shortcomings of the experiments, which distort the results, usually exaggerating those (Lillard et al., 2012). Russ & Wallace in their turn just describe research results, underlining their somewhat contradictory nature but without deep analysis of the reasons of such a status. All in all, as for the development of children’s creativity under the influence of pretend play, the all authors agree that pretend play influences development of creativity, though in quite different aspects. Russ & Wallace trace a connection between pretend play, divergent thinking and creativity, while Lillard et al. consider pretend play to be one of the possible numerous ways of children’s general development or a bridging phenomenon of other factors providing positive developments. In such a way Lillard et al. affirms that the role of pretend play for children’s development is overrated. The gross data of pretend play as a stimulating factor of children’s creativity comes with understanding of its mechanisms and their impact on general development of kids. Actually, pretend play acts as a link between the previous experiences of children (which they use while playing) and creativity, and inversely childrens creativity causes a new experience that they can apply in real life. From the perspective of analysis of childs extremely creative daily life, it comes that most of the time they spend in a visionary world. Consequently, kids need the freedom in pretend play, as their overall development happens there. There are numerous positive aftereffects of pretend play for development of children, as its cognitive and emotional components turn it to serve as a sphere of imagination and a source for creative development. Young ones learn to express their thoughts correctly and clearly while telling stories and engaging in regular dialogues, go through the obtaining of physical and emotional self-control, adopt different behaviour manners from other children, and experience problem solutions. This shows that there is a need of freedom to be creative, which is confirmed by experiments: children with free play actions demonstrate higher rates of divergent thinking than those from the control group (Russ & Wallace, 2013). Still the controversy of the research results manifests themselves even in this case, namely: kids from the control group have shown their creativity after a while with a visible progress in its development, while kids from the free-played group haven’t gone forward to further phase of creative evolvement. Another essential aspect of pretend play is its peculiarity of make-believe thinking, which doesn’t result alone in creativity, but brings success only being accompanied by real physical realization of imagined story with its subjects available for playing of preschool children. Only in that context pretend play is a route for divergent thinking and further development of creativity (Russ & Wallace, 2013). Still there is no dependence between pretend play and divergent thinking in the case of schoolchildren of the first and second grade (Russ & Wallace, 2013). This imprecision may serve as a result of some shortcomings of research, or just may intend the aspect of time expenditure and possibility of creative efficiency in the future, or the case when children don’t pretend puppets and blocks to be something else but just manipulate them without divergent thinking (Lillard et al., 2012). Anyway, results of divergent thinking test evident the necessity of freedom in pretend play for the greater positive effects on creative development of children. Though, such research categories, as time for manifestation of research results (up to four years), age of children, the nature of experiment settings, and possibility of shortcomings are of a great importance while considering the role of pretend play in the development of children’s creativity. So it is obvious that pretend play has a particular benefit even just for general development of kids, serving as one of many routes to it, or as an assistant of other contributing processes. Depending on the nature of pretend play – solo or social one – children are actively engaged in internal or external interaction during creative activities. In any case, pretending stimulates their creativity by the means of active flight of fancy during excogitation and realization of fantastic scenarios, still in the conditions inseparable from their social environment. A great deal accounts for the fact that pretend play has fruitful results in the aspect of creativity development only for those children who inclinable to pretend, or in other words, only kids with reach imagination and make-believe pretending develop their creativity during and by the means of pretend play. Besides, there are numerous causes for children’s pretending, including personal dramatic experience and desire to hide from negative emotions in the imagined world, dissatisfaction of reality and willingness to create another one even just in fancy, high fantasy, and so on. At any rate it becomes clear now that pretend play develops children creativity with a possible further perspective of continued creative process in adulthood. Our strong belief is that findings of analyzed researches evident the real state of the topic and deserve attention due to the large amounts of the work seizing every aspect of the issue. Moreover, their most arguments face our own seeing of the role of pretend play as a pulse of children’s creativity. It all comes with the positive effects of kids’ engagement in creative games with their beneficial influence on general development as well as progress of creativity. By acting in imagined world young ones from the very early childhood practice their communication skills, probably repeating speeches borrowed from their favourite cartoon or fairy-tale heroes, rehearse different social roles, and exercise their imagination. Another advantage of pretend play is a kind of regulatory mechanism of emotions. Naturally, “Pretend play allows expression of both positive and negative feelings and the modulation of affect, the ability to integrate emotion with cognition” (Kaufman, 2012), but its visionary world with its most positive characters teaches children to be polite and non-aggressive. Moreover, the synthesis of gnostic and emotional components of game allows intensifying of creative process and fixing of the result in real life. So in such a way children are prepared to become active social elements, even though till a certain moment their society is framed among other children. “Pretend play is much more than simple play activities; it requires advanced thinking strategies, communication, and social skill” (brighthorizons.com, 2014). As for the role of pretend play for development of children’s creativity, its positive effect is doubtless. Its key element is imagination, which helps children to create everything possible and impossible in their minds and to realize it while playing by the means of practical skills developed due to the cognitive aspect of divergent thinking. As we can see, mechanisms of pretend play are of a complex interdependent nature, which determines the whole value of creative game for development of kids. Furthermore, “…pretend experiences get more complicated and fantastic as children get older…” (Halliburton, 2009) – this is where the exceptional meaning of the issue finds its reflection. As a result, pretend play is characterized by a continual developing process of children’s creativity, which “… will ultimately contribute to their adult lives and experiences” (Holloway, 2009). Still we must not overlook an important factor of control over children’s pretend play in order not to allow its effects to gain negative connotation. The question is about well-known kids’ openness to everything new. In this respect there is a serious threat of disruptive behavior of one child to become a role model for the rest. In this very point there occurs adults’ assistance or rather to say invisible supervision of children’s pretend play. It has to be a universal subtle control and a kind guide line at home, in kindergartens, schools and while leisure time activities for development of children’s creativity in a positive way. In this regard, organization of educational process is in the center of the possible problem, as schools and kindergartens preoccupy much of kids’ time. Finally, through interaction between children (direct participation) and adults (invisible assistance) while pretend play, there is a strong possibility of “…laying the groundwork for a lifetime of fantasy and creativity” (Liebowich, 2013). The topic of correlation between pretend play and development of children’s creativity appears to be directly connected with our society in general. It goes without question that adaptation of a kind of principles of divergent thinking or awakening it in personality in childhood brings a particular positive benefit to his or her life in adulthood. In such a way there is an instant dependence between small pretenders and a society of creative people who are able to find original solutions in every problematic situation and for the prosperity of their world. Just imagine this kind of a new human being, which is not so widely generalized in our time, can change our reality of poverty and incurable maladies, makes new discoveries for the good of humankind and space exploration, and definitely can improve the relations between hostile nations. Then our main goal, as people who are interested in flourishing future of creative humans, is upbringing of creative children through the all kinds of help in pretend play, as a key to the appearance of the new strong society with its basic principle of creativity as a way of development and solution of problems. To sum it up it must be mentioned that our choice belongs to recognition of strength of pretend play in relation to its direct positive influence on development of children’s creativity. The most important factors of the issue include progress in reasoning, communicating, problem solving and appliance of divergent thinking in imaginable world, and transference of the positive experience to real life. Our strong belief is that there is a valid correlation between pretend play, divergent thinking and children’s creativity, which they develop and bring into adulthood. Freedom of self-manifestation of kids while playing being mixed with invisible control of parents and teachers is a guarantee of positive connotation of aftereffects of pretend play for development of children’s creativity. All together beneficial impact of creative game appears to be promising in terms of prosperous future of creative people. Although controversies among numerous research results evident unclear state of the issue, the great many vivid examples from real life support our thought and offer hope that the whole case is in drawbacks of research. References Brighthorizons.com., 2014. The Importance of Pretend Play in Child Development. [Online] (updated 2014) Available at: < http://www.brighthorizons.com/family-resources/e-family-news/2013-importance-of-pretend-play-in-child-development/> [Accessed 13 May 2015]. Halliburton, A., 2009. Preschool Children and Pretend Play. [Online] (updated 25 Aug. 2009) Available at: < http://missourifamilies.org/FEATURES/childcarearticles/childcare7.htm> [Accessed 13 May 2015]. Holloway, J., 2009. Pretend Play – The Advantages. [Online] (updated 19 Nov. 2009) Available at: < http://ezinearticles.com/?Pretend-Play---The-Advantages&id=3296085> [Accessed 13 May 2015]. Kaufman, S. B., 2012. The Need for Pretend Play in Child Development. [Online] (updated Mar. 05 2012) Available at: [Accessed 13 May 2015]. Leibovich, B., 2013. Pretend and Imaginative Play. [Online] (updated 2013) Available at: < http://www.cbeebies.com/asia/grown-ups/helpful-articles/?article=pretend-and-imaginative-play > [Accessed 13 May 2015]. Lillard, A. S. et al., 2012. The Impact of Pretend Play on Children’s Development: A Review of the Evidence. American Psychological Association, 1-34. Russ, S. W., & Wallace, C. E., 2013. Pretend Play and Creative Processes. American Journal of Play, Vol. 6 (1), 136-148. Read More