Edutopia – Emily Kaplan
In other words, imaginative play not only enables children to better understand reality—by helping them to inhabit the perspectives of, say, both a doll patient and a stuffed animal doctor—but also to quickly change the narrative when the reality becomes too much to bear. (In the past two months, I’ve seen this with a three-year-old I’ve spent a lot of time with, who repeatedly declares dolls dead before bringing them back to life.) Psychologists call these processes denial and undoing, and they’re essential to maintaining a child’s sense of safety and control.
Read More