Research in developmental psychology consistently shows that symbolic play (make-believe / pretend play) is one of the primary drivers of cognitive development in early childhood. It is not just an enjoyable emotional or social activity. It builds the capacity for abstract thinking, symbolic reasoning, and narrative understanding that children will rely on throughout their lives. This includes the ability to think about things that are not physically present, to reason through narrative, and to use one symbol to represent another — capacities that underpin reading, mathematics, and scientific thinking.
Sadly, we see less and less symbolic play nowadays, and we wonder if one of the reasons might be the focus on providing educational experiences that are usually perceived and marketed as preparing children for academic success. We often come upon the STEM abbreviation that stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and book titles like “Coding for Babies” are growing in popularity. However, we believe symbolic play is the foundation that makes all other learning possible, and we will use research in developmental psychology to show you how.
Make-believe play helps young children understand reality
Make-believe is not an escape from reality but rather a way of representing and reflecting on it. No matter how far symbolic play ventures into fantastical worlds, it usually follows the physical and psychological rules that govern reality. Dragons and superheroes may fly, but they do so because they have the necessary natural or technological devices, and they are motivated by the same feelings and relationships that motivate creatures in reality.
In fact, make-believe serves to help digest information children get from all available sources, including books, museums, films, etc. In fact, kids most often play with what they have just acquired. In play they process it on their own and construct real knowledge. This type of knowledge is well-consolidated and long-lasting, unlike the ready-made volatile external knowledge that is poured into their brains by adults and devices.
Engaging in symbolic play lets them explore this knowledge from an endless number of perspectives and keeps them interested in it. This is how some children become truly knowledgeable on some topics.
The process starts early. The youngest begin by reconstructing familiar events — driving cars, going to sleep, eating. It seems that imitation and repetition provide a way to better understand them. From there, symbolic play grows more fanciful — but the underlying work remains the same.
Symbolic play provides children with sophisticated mental tools
SYMBOLIZING
The main thinking tool that symbolic play provides is … symbolizing. When a child takes a stick and uses it as a horse, it is not the material object of the stick that matters but the meaning the child gives to it.
While observing nature and culture and interacting with them in a straightforward way is a really important and enriching experience, playing with meaning takes children away from observable reality.
It might seem impractical and a waste of time, but as parents we should look further and know better. It is the unobservable reality that takes center stage when a child becomes a student. Students are asked to think about distant objects and events – when they study history and geography. They will have to think about microscopic objects and their actions, for example how viruses and bacteria act in our bodies and how our immune systems fight back. To understand unobserved reality, we need the capacity to imagine, and the natural way for children to develop it is to engage in symbolic play – as thousands of generations have done.
This capacity is under particular pressure today as most children are exposed to screens from a very young age. That easily makes them passive recipients of information. Sadly, we all know children who are so addicted to their devices that they have become incapable of coming up with anything to do and are truly frustrated and bored when they are separated from their electronic companions.
NARRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR THINKING
Modern babies and young children are constantly offered toys and games that prompt them to analyze, sort, divide into categories. As responsible adults we believe that this will help them not just get some basic knowledge of the world but also teach them how to think like little scientists and help them prepare for school and career. What we teach them this way is called paradigmatic thinking.
However, in order to get to know the world and ourselves better and live meaningful lives, we need more tools than the ones offered by logic and science. One of these tools is narrative thinking. It was explored by the psychologist Jerome Bruner, whose narrative theory has informed a good part of the research on children’s play. Symbolic play is closely related to this mode of thinking, and it immensely helps children use it in sophisticated ways.
Symbolic play is one of the primary ways children develop narrative thinking — the capacity to understand the world through story, sequence, and meaning rather than through analysis and categorisation alone. It is a mode of thinking that logic and science cannot replace.
Symbolic Play and the Origins of Multiple Intelligences
Researchers of symbolic play suggest that in children’s make-believe we can see the beginnings of multiple intelligences. The various media children use in play — dolls, words, blocks, movement — provide the means to develop different types of intelligence simultaneously. They say that in the forms of symbolic play one can see the prototypes of later activities that humans practice at their more mature stages. Biographies have taught us that many people who have reached mastery in their fields can trace back the beginnings of the development of their skills in their play as children. A well-known example is the architect Frank Lloyd Wright who claimed that he began his career by playing with his blocks as a child.
You might be acquainted with Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. It is based on the idea that there is no single general intelligence but several different intelligences, i.e., relatively distinct intellectual abilities – Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Logical-Mathematical, Naturalist, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Musical. Other scholars have proposed additional intelligences. It is in the spontaneous, self-directed world of make-believe that children first engage all of these intelligences at once.
Symbolic Play and Cognitive Development: The Takeaway
Symbolic play is not a break from learning but rather the natural context in which some of the most important learning takes place. It builds the cognitive tools a human needs to think abstractly, reason through narrative, and engage in multiple forms of intelligence. These capacities are the foundation of academic learning.
If you want to further explore the topic, see our Symbolic Play Guide for Parents and come back to our blog as we keep adding resources.
References
Children’s Play by W. George Scarlett, Sophie Naudeau, Dorothy Salonius-Pasternak & Iris Ponte
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard E Gardner
The Narrative Construction of Reality by Jerome Bruner
Lydia Staikova holds an MA in English and Bulgarian Literature and Linguistics from Shoumen University, where she studied pedagogy, psychology, and child development. She has taught English and counseled students for thirty years. She is a parent and homeschooled her children for several years. Lydia writes all editorial content on mrfoxcrafts.com. See full bio here.