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In the Land of Make Believe: The Joy of Pretending with Children
By Kenneth Brock
Issue 112, May/June 2002

"Ahoy, matey! Permission to come aboard?" I ask my daughter, using my best pirate voice. "Are you a good Long John Silver?" my daughter replies, her telescope clutched firmly in her hand, her sailor hat falling over her eyes. "Oh, I'm a good pirate, matey. No need to be worrying about that." "Alright, good Long John Silver, then let's play!"

With that, a rousing game of pirate adventure begins. We sketch an authentic pirate map, with a skull and crossbones below the crocodile cave and an X to mark the spot where the buried treasure lies. We burn the edges for just the right appearance, and so no one is unsure of this paper's value, write "Treasure Map" at the top. With her pretend telescope pressed tightly to her eye, three-and-a-half-year-old Margaret announces in her loud seafaring voice, "Pirates, good Long John Silver. I see pirates. Let's get out of here!"

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Sometimes I'm the Count from Sesame Street, using my Dracula voice as I count aloud for a game of hide-and-seek. Other times I'm Tony from An American Tale, speaking like a refugee from Brooklyn. Margaret calls me Ton for short, and she pretends to be Fieval-or Five-my buddy, the lost mouse trying to find her family. Once in a while I get to be the French chef, doing my best Maurice Chevalier, as I instruct Margaret on the finer points of peanut butter and pickle sandwich construction. And when we play chase, I invariably get to be Margaret's Irish friend Emer--a near-40-year-old father running after his daughter, trying to sound as if the ferry from Dublin had just arrived.

Role playing comes naturally to kids. They are born actors, able to furrow their brows in concentration and not think twice about how the neighbors might view this seeming eccentricity. Dressed up in a cowboy costume or ballet garb, children thrive. Role playing allows them to use their imaginations, as well as to express themselves.

Perhaps most importantly, role playing encourages children to be innovative. The sheer act of being creative does more to teach a child to cope with larger, more complex issues than any rote learning exercise. Creators build and make things; they seek out solutions and solve problems.

Sometimes, I admit, it's exhausting to be the Count for two solid hours, through dinner, bath time and a bedtime story, always sounding like a Transylvanian transplant looking for a neck to nip. But then there's the payoff, the parenting prize, the moment when the child's guilelessness makes you smile and want to hug her for an hour.

For me, one such reward came during a Romeo and Juliet moment. Margaret was standing on her "balcony," a small green kid's chair on the deck, saying, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" "I am here in the garden below, awaiting your good graces, my lady," I replied. And in her most dramatic and breathy voice, Margaret responded, "Just a minute while I come downstairs and open the door for ya."

Kids grow up fast, too fast. Put your pirate clothes on now. Go outside, limp around the yard. Swear to the heavens that the treasure should be right here, just where you buried it.

Kenneth Brock is a stay-at-home dad by occupation and a lawyer by avocation. He lives in Colorado, where he ferries daughters Margaret and Kate to school, strives madly to create the perfect loaf of sourdough bread, washes the dishes so that his wife, Linda, doesn't have to, and pens the occasional word or two.