Remember the time when your toddler swung a wooden stick around like a sword and fought the imagined enemies? Or maybe used a banana as a mobile phone and talked to his/her friends. Perhaps, you once found your toddler using your big serving bowls as a hat and parading in the house. These and similar playing experiences like these represent Symbolic play.
Symbolic play is one of the key elements of a renowned Swiss Psychologist, Jean Piaget’s theory. Jean Piaget largely contributed to children’s education and cognitive development. According to Jean Piaget, a child goes through four developmental stages, namely, sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete-operational, and formal-operational. The second stage called the preoperational stage, is where children acquire symbolic knowledge and show symbolic play. This stage begins from 18-24 months and lasts up to 7 years.
In simpler terms, symbolic play is using one object and symbolizing it as another. For instance, symbolizing a wooden stick as a sword, a banana as a mobile phone, or serving bowls as a hat. This is the stage in a toddler’s life where they let their creativity run free and experiment with different things.
Let’s see some examples of symbolic play in daily life that you will commonly find your toddlers engaging in.
Examples of symbolic play in day-to-day life
1. Using empty bowls or plates as a steering wheel
Plates and certain bowls are wide and resemble a steering wheel and thus become a perfect replacement for a steering wheel of a car or a spaceship.
2. Using cardboard boxes as a hideout
Using an old discarded cardboard box and making it a hideout is another symbolic play example. Toddlers are often creative in making their hideout places and stuff the place with their favorite toys and snacks, so that they can spend much of the time in their hideout, comfortably.
3. Using pillows, blankets, and cushions to make castles or forts
Children often use pillows and blankets to make their castle and even pretend to defend it from enemies or live in it and rule their kingdom.
4. Converting chairs into their vehicles.
Young children often sit on a chair and pretend they are driving a vehicle by acting as if they are handling the bike handles or the car’s steering wheel. They also make noises associated with the vehicle.
5. Using cardboard boxes as trolleys or boats
Children use cardboard boxes as trolleys or boats by sitting inside them and asking their other friends to push them.
6. Long and broad puzzle pieces or Lego becomes toy cars
Give the children a Lego piece or puzzle piece, the size of a toy car and they will run into the whole house pretending they are playing with a car.
7. Using a tablecloth as a superhero’s cape
Table cloth or any long cloth is an appropriate replacement for a superhero’s cape. Toddlers tie the tablecloth around their necks and pretend they are superheroes on a mission to save the world.
8. Using pieces of paper as cash to buy imaginary stuff
Children are often aware of some colored papers (money) that are used to buy stuff. They use pieces of normal paper and sometimes color them and use them as cash and buy imaginary stuff.
9. Using pointed objects such as paper cones as a wizard’s hat
Using pointed objects such as paper cones as a wizard’s hat, children pretend to be wizards and play games related to magic and wizards.
10. Using straw as a sword
Straw is a common replacement for swords for children. Children pretend to fight their battles and defend their kingdom using their straw swords.
Symbolic play and its developmental benefits
Symbolic play marks the development of cognitive and social skills and also allows children to be as creative as possible in their thoughts and actions.
Certain benefits of symbolic play are-
1. Cognitive development
Symbolic play facilitates cognitive development in children and promotes analytical thinking. Also, symbolic play helps children develop problem-solving skills and widen their thought processes. Symbolic plays also help children view things from different perspectives and help them understand that other people hold views differently from theirs. There are multiple ways how cognitive learning works and cognitive development occurs in young children, and symbolic play is one of the mediums for the same.
2. Motor development
Symbolizing one object as another and playing with it requires the use of both fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Symbolic play helps refine both fine and gross motor skills over time by making children indulge in sports that aid in a child’s development and makes children physically healthy.
3. Socio-emotional development
Children often play with their peers and share their thoughts and stories with others. It helps in developing the social skills of the children. Children learn to narrate their stories and convey their views in a way that is understandable to others. In doing so, children develop both socially and emotionally.
4. Language development
Symbolic plays facilitate language development. Children indicate objects using sounds and words and gradually develop language and a vocabulary that helps them communicate with others and share their thoughts and ideas with others.
Concluding thoughts
Symbolic play is a crucial part of developing children. It represents the normal and healthy development of children in multiple faces, such as physical, cognitive, social, emotional, or language. Symbolic play expands a child’s thought process and allows their creativity an outlet. From symbolizing one object for another to narrating stories, children are highly creative, and symbolic play is one of the mediums for its expression.
I am Sehjal Goel, a psychology student, and a writer. I am currently pursuing my Masters’s from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Child psychology has always fascinated me and I have a deep interest in learning about disabilities in children and spreading awareness regarding the same. My other areas of interest are neuropsychology and cognitive psychology. Connect me on Linkedin