The most important people in your life right now are your children, and you want to do everything in your power to make sure they grow into the best versions of themselves they could possibly be. Did you know pretend play is absolutely crucial in child development, which is why you’re such a fantastic person today? Let’s look at the real life skills they’ll develop and how pretend play will help them achieve each one.

It will ignite their creativity

They’ll learn how to cooperate

Improve their leadership skills

Become advanced in the art of strategy

Learn to become more independent

Enhanced language skills

The ability to tell better stories

Always able to be happy

Random life skills

It Will Ignite Their Creativity

Nobody can deny being creative isn’t advantageous as you grow older, and it isn’t only related to the arts. Being creative means you can write your own music and build unique smartphone apps, but even having the ability to use your initiative when trying to solve everyday problems will help you go far in life. Without creativity, you are left copying everyone else in all walks of life

There are an unlimited number of scenarios your child could come up with during pretend play. If they enjoy cooking rather than being the captain of a pirate ship they could use a play kitchen often, but they’ll still come up with thousands of different things to do with it. Watch your child as they play and you’ll notice they never repeat the exact same thing twice because they always think of new ideas.

They’ll Learn How To Cooperate

Do you know what is said the most when a potential job applicant is asked what their best quality is? They say they’re great at teamwork, which is mostly because they think it’s what the interviewer wants to hear. Teamwork is absolutely crucial in the workplace, and you will never get anywhere if you don’t learn how to cooperate with people. It’s usually why certain individuals don’t have any friends.

Not only will pretend play mean your child will make lots of friends, but they’ll do this by learning how to cooperate with the other children. When you make up stories you can’t decide what happens all the time if you’re playing with other people so you have to learn how to share responsibilities, and also follow along with something even if you would normally do it differently.

Improve Their Leadership Skills

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum your child will learn how to become a leader, and although you hear people talking about natural-born leaders it’s a myth. Learning how to lead people is a skill you must acquire through practice just like anything else, and it happens to be an important one in daily life. You will never make it to the top if you don’t know how to lead people.

Throughout history a number of great leaders have honed their skills on the battlefield, but is a real war any different from one concocted in the mind of a child? The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between the real world and an imaginary one, so whenever your child is helping people and telling them what to do they’re subconsciously developing the ability to lead people.

Become Advanced In The Art Of Strategy

While we’re on the subject of battlefields, let’s talk a little about the art of strategy. To be more specific, how does being great at planning things help in the real world? If someone is always unorganized it’s safe to assume their life is a complete mess. If you don’t have any planning skills you’ll run into disasters like getting into debt due to your finances spinning out of control.

Your child might end up pretending they’re working at a bank or organizing a trip into outer space, but if you look at it more deeply it’s hard to pretend play without planning out what you’re going to do in advance. Once they know how to think things through logically before acting it will stay with them for life as it will be ingrained in their little mind.

Learn To Become More Independent

The world is a rough place, as I’m sure you know only too well. When your child is ready to leave the nest you will be scared stiff if they’re too dependent on you. Everyone in the world needs to be capable of being independent so they don’t need to rely on anyone but themselves. If you’re independent you are a fighter who will do anything to survive in any tough situation.

When your child is still young they cling to you. As they get older they still scream when you leave them on their own. Once your child starts to pretend play you cease to exist, and they visit other worlds where they have to deal with things on their own. Without pretend play a child doesn’t have other options to be independent until they’re much older, so you must make sure they grab it with both hands.

Enhanced Language Skills

Too many people have a small vocabulary because they don’t go anywhere. They do the same things and speak to the same people every day. You’ll often hear certain individuals referred to as ‘worldly,’ and it might not have anything to do with how many countries they’ve set foot in. They’re deemed to be higher up on the social ladder, and it’s because they have enhanced language skills.

Pretend play will give children a huge vocabulary as they’ll have to find ways to explain the different galaxies they visit, the dishes they cook from food sources yet to be invented, and the imaginary people all unlike anyone they’ve spoken to before. On top of that, they’ll also learn how to communicate with other kids and their social skills will increase quicker than others the same age.

The Ability To Tell Better Stories

Whether you’re a marketer selling a product or a politician running for office, your ability to tell great stories is what will hook people in so they’ll listen to you. Our whole life revolves around telling stories, even when it comes to courting someone or standing out when in an interview. Being able to sell yourself, which is done best through stories, will let you go anywhere in life.

Put yourself in your child’s shoes. The only thing running through their head while they pretend play is stories. They’ll always be trying to come up with better ones, not because they understand child development but so they can have more fun. The fact they’re teaching their brain a valuable life skill is something they’ll only reap the true rewards of as they get older.