E14: Magic, Monsters, and Make-believe

The Speckled Bees: A Celebration of Childhood

Does your child believe there are monsters under the bed? Is encouraging the idea of Santa lying and manipulating your children? Lucy gets her nerd on this week as we discuss the development of magical thinking! We talk about different developmental theorists and theories. We zone in on Piaget's idea of the Preoperational stage of development from about 2-8 and different characteristics that contribute to the belief in magic and monsters.
We list the benefits of magical thinking, dramatic play, and dress up and even talk about gun play and superhero play and give ideas to help redirect to help it be productive and to keep it evolving. We then go into a specific list of why it is important to have traditions and celebrate holidays.
We talk about how to encourage imaginative thinking and play including going along with their games and imagination (pick your battles and trust children), offering open-ended toys and dress up clothes, letting your children experience boredom (limit screen time), and reading to your child. We make a list of some great books about monsters and Halloween.
We end with talking about the transition out of the preoperational stage and what that means. This is when children really develop a conscience and start to develop empathy. That is why sharing is so hard before this, and is not developmentally appropriate to force.
What magical experience did you have as a child? What whimsy have you maintained into your adult life?
References:
https://theconversation.com/why-its-ok-for-kids-to-believe-in-santa-128170

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_697103_en.html
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/ages-stages-how-children-use-magical-thinking/

https://www.simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/cognitive-development-2/

"Wholesome" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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