How wild is it when Baby plays pretend? Does they fight dragons and construct entire castles in their mind? Chances are, the answer is no unless they watch a lot of Disney movies – or maybe you read them historical speculation about medieval sieges as bedtime stories. Instead, it’s much more likely that their play-pretend games are about the things they see every day, whether that means putting a doll to bed following the bedtime routine you use to tuck them into bed, or acting out using the construction crane that you drive past every day on their way to preschool.
The familiarity of these scenes isn’t a sign of a failure of their imagination, though – there’s every chance they'll imagine all kinds of strange things that will leave you wondering “Where did they get that from?” as they get older. For now, they're using these imaginative-but-familiar games as a way of making sense of the world as they understand it.
This means that these pretend games are an early window into their still-developing sense of empathy. By beginning to put themself in someone else’s shoes, they are starting to think about what other people might think and how they might feel. You can help foster this growing empathy by talking to them about how you feel and about other people’s feelings.
You can also help foster this early tendency towards empathy by making a point to make reading a part of Baby’s regular routine. Reading is another great way to build this sense of what other people might be feeling because, unlike in their pretend play, they doesn’t have to guess or make up someone else’s feelings – they can actually see them play out on the pages of their storybook. Guessing and making up what someone could be feeling in a pretend game is a great way to practice using empathy, but books, and the chance for insight that they bring, give them even more tools to make those guesses.
Reading with Baby will also give them a boost in school a few years down the road – the more words a young child is exposed to before starting kindergarten, the better they tend to do there. You can also work on giving Baby’s vocabulary a little bit of pizzaz by speaking to them using some bigger and more complicated words. They might not understand what they mean right away, but by this point, they understand the rest of what you say, so they can use the context to work out what these new words mean.
Milestones
Puts together five- or six-word sentences: Baby’s been speaking in sentences for a while now, and, slowly but steadily, those sentences have probably started to get longer and more complex. In the time leading up to their first five- or six-word sentence, you may notice them starting to use different verb forms and pronouns (and eventually you may even start to notice them using them correctly), and soon they may even start to be able to use adjectives – as they learn their colors and shapes and learns about opposites like big and little, hot and cold, and wet and dry.
Can count to three: Maybe you’ve told them how old they are, or how old they are going to be, or maybe they have a counting book. The how doesn’t really matter, what matters is that they have the memory capacity to store a sequence of three numbers and that they are even starting to get a sense for what those three numbers mean.
Sources
- Rebecca Parlakian and Claire Lerner. “From Baby to Big Kid: Month 34.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, May 16 2016. Retrieved September 6 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1275-from-baby-to-big-kid-month-34.
- Rebecca Parlakian and Claire Lerner. “From Baby to Big Kid: Month 33.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, May 16 2016. Retrieved September 6 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1274-from-baby-to-big-kid-month-33.
- “30-36 Months: Your Child’s Development.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, February 10 2016. Retrieved September 6 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/108-30-36-months-your-child-s-development.
- “Activities for Bonding and Learning from 24 to 36 Months.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, April 18 2016. Retrieved September 7 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1079-activities-for-bonding-and-learning-from-24-to-36-months.
- “Developmental Milestones: 2 Years Old.” Healthy Children. American Academy of Pediatrics, June 1 2009. Retrieved August 14 2017. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/toddler/Pages/Developmental-Milestones-2-Year-Olds.aspx.
- “Developmental Milestones: 3 to 4 Year Olds.” Healthy Children. American Academy of Pediatrics, November 21 2015. Retrieved August 14 2017. https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Developmental-Milestones-3-to-4-Year-Olds.aspx.
- “Developmental Skills for Ages 2 to 3 Years.” Fairview Health Services. University of Minnesota, Amplatz Children’s Hospital. Retrieved September 7 2017. https://www.fairview.org/fv/groups/internet/documents/web_content/developmen_201009262104505.pdf.
- “Feeding: What to Expect From 24 to 36 Months.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, February 16 2009. Retrieved September 6 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/154-feeding-what-to-expect-from-24-to-36-months.
- “Learning and Development: Young Children 24 to 36 Months.” Better Brains for Babies. University of Georgia. Retrieved September 7 2017. http://bbbgeorgia.org/childDev_24-36.php.
- “Play Activities for 24 to 36 Months.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, February 17 2010. Retrieved September 7 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/169-play-activities-for-24-to-36-months.
- “Physical Activity for Your Child: Age 2 Years.” Lancaster General Health. Penn Medicine. Retrieved September 7 2017. http://www.lancastergeneralhealth.org/LGH/ECommerceSite/media/LGH-Media-Library/Documents/Services/Service%20Lines/Healthy%20Weight%20Management/Fact%20Sheets/Physical-Activity-Age-2.pdf.
- “Stages of Play from 24-36 Months: The World of Imagination.” Zero to Three. Zero to Three, February 26 2015. Retrieved September 6 2017. https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/315-stages-of-play-from-24-36-months-the-world-of-imagination.
- “Your Child at Three Years.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved September 7 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/pdf/checklists/checklists_3yr.pdf.
