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Invite a stubborn kid into Moana
Casting a Stubborn Child
Picture a child who will not do something that needs doing, like putting on shoes. Rather than arguing, the parent brings her into an invented story she already loves, Moana or The Lion King, and gives her a part. She runs into Moana's arms and gets caught, and once she is inside the story, the shoes go on.
Photos From Play Worlds
Photos from classrooms running Play Worlds show the same idea at larger scale: children in paper hats and costumes, hugging stuffed animals, and building things in small groups. One photo is a classroom coat closet taken from a child's height, showing only its lower half, with coattails and sleeve cuffs hanging at different lengths. The children treated that closet as a portal to another world.
Why a Story Helps
A child who struggles to fit in or follow directions may feel more at ease once stepping into a fantasy world, where the directions can be fun rather than a bore.
Does acting as a character help children persist?
In a 2016 study in the journal Child Development, the psychologists Rachel White and Stephanie Carlson gave children aged four to six a long, dull computer task. Children who took on the persona of a character such as Batman stayed with the task longer than children who spoke about themselves in the first person. The researchers called this the Batman Effect and linked it to self-distancing, which is stepping back from one's own feelings.
The effect appeared in children who pretended to be a character, not in those who only watched one.
How does pretend play develop through early childhood?
Jean Piaget described symbolic play as emerging around 18 months to two years, when a toddler first treats a block as a telephone or a banana as a spoon. By three or four, children start to coordinate roles with each other. The Israeli researcher Sara Smilansky named this stage sociodramatic play in 1968, defining it by role-taking, shared make-believe, and talk between players.
Smilansky's 1968 study compared preschoolers in Israel across different backgrounds.
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