by Kathy Eugster
March 6, 2026
Imaginary or pretend play happens when children use their imaginations to create make-believe play scenarios. Children love to engage in this type of play and will use almost any object or toy to represent something in real life and may even act out a particular role themselves becoming part of a play drama.
However, adults may have forgotten how to play that way and can feel uncomfortable or silly engaging with children in imaginary or pretend play. Adults often feel more comfortable with games or activities with instructions, for example playing card or board games, putting together puzzles, or building or making something according to instructions. This is unfortunate because playing together in an imaginary, pretend, or make-believe way raises the parent-child relationship to a whole new level of connection and positivity.
When parents join in their children’s imaginary play, they are entering their child’s special world. When this happens, children are able to observe their parents from a completely different, and refreshing, perspective. Child development experts agree that imaginary play is important for healthy child development in so many ways. Children learn about the real world by playing out situations and themes both realistically and symbolically.
Parents can, and should, become involved in their children’s imaginary pretend play.
Tips for Parents
Pretend to be a particular character by acting and talking like that character, for example,
- pretend to be a superhero and say, “Let’s find the bad guys!”
Hold onto a toy and move it around as you give voice to it. When you hold onto a toy and move it around, it indicates to your child that you are taking on the role of that particular toy character. For example,
- take hold of a toy dinosaur, move it around, and say, “Where are my dinosaur friends?”
You can give voice to anything. Children love it when you give voice to inanimate things, such as toy cars, or even stones or small rocks, for example,
- hold onto a car and move it around and say, “I need a car wash today.”
Use first person narrative when you are speaking as the character, for example,
- if you are pretending to be a doctor you would say, “Please come into my office and I will check Dolly’s heart.”
Children love it when you exaggerate emotions. Try to add a bit of feeling to what you are saying to match the emotion being expressed. You can change your voice fairly easily to match a particular character by making your voice higher, lower, faster, slower, louder, or quieter. Remember to keep things funny or engaging and not scary. Think of doing a comedy sketch rather than real life drama.
With imaginary play, objects do not need to look realistic, for example, you can pretend that a box is a boat, a stick is a spoon, or a block is a car.
When you are pretending to be a character chasing your child, whether you’re chasing your child yourself or making a toy chase your child, you don’t need to chase as another child might. All you need to do is to take a few quick steps closer, or even just lean and reach towards your child, and pretend you are trying to catch them. Children love to get away!
Also, remember to set limits for unsafe behaviors from your child such as kicking, hitting, or punching if they are role-playing aggressive characters. Please see my Blog, Setting Limits in Playtime for more information on how to set limits.
If you are role-playing an aggressive character yourself such as a pirate or superhero, you do not want to overwhelm your child with your power so they feel totally powerless! You want to give your child some sense of power and control without hurting you. Please see my blog, Stop Roughhousing! But Wait, Isn’t Rough-and-Tumble Play Okay? to read about engaging in more physical roles with your child.
Don’t take over the play! Let your child come up with ideas for how the play unfolds, even if it may not be the way you want it to unfold. And remember not to correct your child unless things become unsafe or destructive. Your child learns so much about the real world through imaginary play. Here is some information on child-directed play, a type of play that allows your child to use their imaginations and lead the play:
6 Key Concepts for Child-Directed Play with Your 3-10 Year-old Child
Child-Directed Play in 4 Easy Steps!
Ideas for Imaginary Play Scenarios
- Grocery Store: Set up a store with toy food items. Provide a shopping bag, something that could be used as a cash register (such as a box) and some play money. Take on the role of either the shopkeeper or customer. Try acting like a confused or rushed customer.
- Restaurant: Take turns being the chef and customer. For fun, take on the role of an incompetent chef or unhappy customer.
- Picnic: Pretend you are going on a picnic. To add interest, pretend a storm is coming and you have to pack up quickly.
- Doctor’s Office: You play the doctor while your child plays the patient. Then reverse roles and take on the role of a sick patient that gets better with the doctor’s care.
- School: Take turns being the teacher and the child at school. You can take on the roles yourself, or use small toy characters to represent the teacher and children, possibly adding parent figures and even a toy car to drop off and pick up the children.
- Adventure Quest: Create a fantasy world with heroes, villains, and magical creatures. For example, create a scenario by having two astronaut toy characters go on an adventure to a new planet, such as to a different room, where they find alien creatures that could be represented by dragons or dinosaur toys.
- Family Roles: Let your child be the parent and you be the child, for example, you take on the role of a baby lion and your child takes on the role of the mommy or daddy lion.
To Finish
Although structured forms of play such as games or activities with rules or instructions are important for children, imaginary or pretend play is also very important for children’s healthy development and should not be ignored in favor of more structured activities.
Here are some more articles to help you learn more about imaginary or pretend play:
Encouraging Children to Play Imaginatively and Creatively
Wait! Imaginary play for only 10 minutes?
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? De-mystifying Imaginary Play
Fantastical Play: Like Alice in Wonderland!
Acting for Dummies! Secrets of Playtime Role-Play for Parents
You may want to consider this:
If you are interested in learning more about parent-child playtime, please see my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play.
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Copyright Kathy Eugster, MA, 2026.
Please feel free to pass on this article to anyone you think might find it useful.
Contact me at: keugster@telus.net