Knights in plastic armour and the point of pretend play

Princesses and pirates don’t only come out at Halloween. Dress-up play is a year-round pursuit that stimulates the imagination and stirs the creative juices.

Pretending to be somebody is a way for kids to explore their feelings and act out their fantasies. Donning a cape or fairy wings can take kids on a voyage of personal discovery. The hours of swordplay my boys enjoyed didn’t turn them into knights. It did help them to problem solve, compromise, care for the wounded and create their own fun.

Their knight outfits came from the gift shop at Casa Loma. Our annual visits to the “castle” fed their interest in all things medieval, except princesses. I didn’t want my boys to have weapons. They had water squirters, not water guns. They did, however, fashion weapons out of sticks and duct tape; therefore caving on the weapons ban became negotiable.

They were allowed to choose plastic swords. My new rule was that they needed to be equally armed. Another rule, besides the universal no-headshot edict, was that they needed to be protected. Shields were part of the attire anyway as were the helmets. They used cardboard and ye olde duct tape to complete the look.

If they were girls, perhaps they would have wanted to be queen of the castle or more likely the princess. If they were like many of the little girls who get their pretend attire from Great Pretenders, they would have accessorized with a sword. That was one of the surprising things I learned from the kids’ costume and dress-up accessory company’s creative director Kate Muddiman during a recent interview.

We were speaking about the value of dress-up play and trying on different personalities. She defended the princess craze, saying that popular culture and inappropriate role models are more likely to morph little girls into wannabe teens. Check out the related article http://cityparent.com/posts/1380-dress-up-play-sets-the-stage-for-creativity-and-learning.