The Mom Kind 
As children, we all enjoyed dressing up in costumes for Halloween, school plays, or our make-believe games. This allowed us to explore our imaginations and play out roles emulating real-life characters. We played a vast array of professional characters or our friends and family, as well as fairy tales. When it comes to our children, encouraging them to dress up in costumes can help mold their future. It widens their horizons to the personalities and professions they can grow into; this form of play is very important. The benefits of children playing dress-up are countless, but we’ll go over the top ones.
During play, your child’s brain engages in creativity. Doing this will help develop their abilities and aid them in choosing their careers. As anyone who works with children knows that play is as important as work. Play helps in shaping and developing children’s cognitive, academic, social, physical, and emotional skills.
Benefits of Children Playing Dress-up
Brain development
One of the top benefits of children playing dress-up is that it helps to develop the brain and memory of children. They tend to emulate the character they are dressed as and try to play out things they have seen this specific personality type do. This helps them improve their memory skills while they try to recall how these characters are presented in real life.
Problem-solving
Playing in groups together and dressing up in costumes will allow for a lot of problem-solving opportunities. Children will discuss amongst themselves, which costume each one will wear, which props they will share and learn to collaborate in order to come up with their roles and characters.
Exploration
When children dress up in occupational uniforms that they see in their daily life, whether it is an astronaut costume, a scientist’s lab coat, a ballerina’s tutu, or a fireman’s outfit, they can envision themselves growing into these roles. Even if they dress up as fairy tale characters or mythological creatures, their pretend play in costume allows them to bring out aspects of their personality that will shape their minds for their future.
Emotional development
When in costume, children can disassociate from their real selves. They can act out emotions and reactions that they might not usually act out. If they’re confronted with scary situations while playing, they’ll feel more confident that they can face those fears. They may act bravely or gallantly because their costumes transform them into their character. This helps in children developing balanced emotional reactions to real-life situations.
Things to keep on hand
- Hats of all kinds – cowboys’ hats, a painter’s beret, fedoras, crowns, a princess hat
- A chef’s hat and apron, and kitchen props
- A doctor’s scrubs, and face mask with a medical toy tool kit
- An astronaut’s spacesuit and helmet; a fireman’s jacket and red helmet
- Play capes, dresses, pants, and belts
- Sunglasses, long gloves, strands of beads, makeup, and other props that can add to your child’s costumes.
Benefits of Children Playing Dress-up
Playing dress up and wearing costumes play a major role in a child’s development. Whether socially, cognitively or emotionally, it will always be beneficial to have a few costumes and props on hand for role-playing, and make-believe games for your children. When children are allowed to explore their personalities and play freely, they grow up to be emotionally well-balanced adults. Imaginative play will shape them to excel in their future, as a result of the experience they gained while imitating real-life roles.
The Mom Kind
Alicia Trautwein is an Autism advocate, writer, motivational speaker, and dedicated mom of four. Alicia’s desire to advocate for Autism comes from her own autism diagnosis and that of her three children, niece, and brother. Her life’s mission is to educate on autism acceptance and change the world for future generations of autistic individuals.
