Does your child play dress up? Here are some benefits:
✅Imagination – Imaginative play is the key to creativity.
✅Imitation – Kids are born to imitate, even babies when you stick your tongue out and they copy. Through dress up, they can explore the lives of other people by imitating their behaviors, feelings and thoughts.
✅Motor skills – In my potty training blog, I write about the importance of dress up because they can work on pulling up pants and pushing pants down, buttoning a shirt, zipping up pants, etc. These are all fine motor skills being put into practice. Gross motor skills such as hopping like a bunny, flying like an airplane, and climbing like a firefighter all help your kids practice these skills through dress up.
✅Socialization – Dress up encourages cooperation and taking turns.
✅Emotional Development - Kids often process their fears through play. During the recent fires, my daughter was a firefighter rescuing everyone to safety for about 2 weeks after. This allowed my daughter to make sense of the world, overcome her feelings of helplessness and feel safe.
✅Problem Solving – This allows children to work together on who is going to be the firefighter and who is going to be rescued.
✅Expressive language – They start to use the words they have heard in conversations in their dress up.
✅Working Memory – Children may act out stories that they hear so it forces them to recall the details.