Pretend/Imaginary Play in 5th and beyond

[Gil]

By imaginative pretend play, I mean playing mostly without toys or playing games where the toys are secondary to the game. As in pretending to be X, or imaginarily adventuring through Xland, etc.

I'm sure that a lot of people won't remember, but if you can remember:
When did you and your peers stop playing imaginative pretend? Was it drastically different from when you and your peers stopped playing with toys?

What was the most enduring toy that you played with? (The toy that you played with for the longest period of time, whether it was 4-8, or 5-14, etc?)

When did your kids (boys and girls) and their peers stop playing pretend? What was the most enduring toy that your kids played with?

[Farrar]

I totally played pretend games through much of middle school. I definitely remember. For me, it was tied with writing stories. And then in high school, I fell in with the role playing game people, so that's a form of pretend as well.

My kids also played pretend in various ways through middle school, but have stopped more or less - except for things like D&D - in high school.

Toys stopped being a key part of pretend play for my kids around age 10 or 11. It became much more about language than objects. The most enduring toy they had was probably the junky plastic figures they had and the basic blocks just because they kept getting repurposed over the years.

[Lecka]

My older son played with nerf guns and pretend swords through 6th grade.  They were pretending various things.  

[alisoncooks]

I can't remember for myself, but my youngest (who will be 11 in June) plays outside by herself every day, multiple times. From what I can see, she's out there talking to herself and acting things out. Very elaborately. When asked, she says she's role playing but won't give details (and then bans me from the kitchen window so she can act in peace/privacy. I guess the neighbors don't count.)

ETA: her outdoor imaginative play has no props. She also plays with toys still (mostly animal figurines and stuffed animals). 

Edited March 26, 2019 by alisoncooks

[Bluegoat]

I think grade 5 was about the last year I did this.  I might have continued into grade 6, but it was very much not a done thing in the school I was at that year - the girls were very focused on being grown up and talking about boys.  By grade 7 I think my way of thinking probably would have made it difficult to pretend play like a child, I could imagine, but I was too adult in my thought processes to act it out in play.  It would be like when I try and pretend play with my kids now - I'd have been faking it.

However, I did in grade 6 and 7 start with role playing games, and I carried that on all the way through school.  

[J-rap]

I gave up imaginary play when I became interested in boys  🙂  ...  Mid-7th grade, maybe?

Several of my kids were really into imaginative play.  And then they got involved in theater after that, so in a way, it continued!

My absolute favorite toys were tiny little plastic people and animals, about an inch high.  I had about 30 of them and they all had names and personalities.  I played with them for years.  I'd spend a lot of time just setting them up and getting them "ready" to play.  But then, a lot of their interactions with each other went on simply inside of my head, hardly even involving them physically.  I was totally happy playing this way by myself.

A couple of my kids played make-believe all the time... Not with toys, but just with each other.   One of their favorite "roles" were playing orphans.  They'd wear "orphan" clothes and pretend all day long that they lived in an orphanage like Little Orphan Annie.   Another dd would sit in the back seat of the car for long trips and pretend each finger was a character.  Her fingers would be talking with each other for the whole trip.  Her lips would be silently moving as they talked to each other, but she never said any of it out loud.  🙂 

I'd say we all probably played imaginative-type play a little longer than our peers, but honestly, I attributed that mostly to just being creative.  Sometimes my kids would have friends over who never played that way, and it never occurred to them to play that way.  But once they did, they enjoyed it.

ETA:  Definitely any time of imaginative play I did after 5th grade -- 6th at the latest --  was done at home only.  Not at school!  I did have a couple friends who enjoyed this type of play too so we'd get together and play that way at home but never discuss it at school.

Edited March 26, 2019 by J-rap

[Janeway]

1 hour ago, Gil said:

By imaginative pretend play, I mean playing mostly without toys or playing games where the toys are secondary to the game. As in pretending to be X, or imaginarily adventuring through Xland, etc.

I'm sure that a lot of people won't remember, but if you can remember:
When did you and your peers stop playing imaginative pretend? Was it drastically different from when you and your peers stopped playing with toys?

What was the most enduring toy that you played with? (The toy that you played with for the longest period of time, whether it was 4-8, or 5-14, etc?)

When did your kids (boys and girls) and their peers stop playing pretend? What was the most enduring toy that your kids played with?

I only owned two dolls growing up...Sara Anne and Katie. I played with them a long time. I am not sure when I stopped. My daughter damaged both. I had them, well, I still have them. They have survived my life, but not my daughter. Sara Anne was the Baby That-A-Way and Katie was the Fisher Price doll from that year. <sigh> I still remember laying my blanket out, the one my aunt hand made for me. And setting up stuff on the blanket to pretend it was a nursery. Sara (Baby That A Way) was the bigger sister and Katie was younger. I had a very old vintage high chair that had been my mom's when she was little. It is still at my mom's house, for all of us to fight over.

[Sarah0000]

Board games was the most enduring toy. All the neighborhood kids played them from age around 7 through to around 13. I remember doing pretend imaginative play through sophomore year but I had younger siblings I was playing with.  I do not remember playing with my peers that way except in school related theatrical activities.

[SanDiegoMom]

I don't remember my own imaginative play -- maybe 6th or 7th? My kids are very different - my daughter would still play with her lego dragons if she had someone to play with. Most of her friends are too busy or just don't play with toys anymore.

My son did play off and on throughout elementary school with his sister when she begged him, but it wasn't by choice usually.  Now he likes to make skits and film them and he plays in a D&D group.  They are both 7th grade. 

 

[Farrar]

I find that the cooperative pretend play of middle schoolers is generally different than of much younger kids. Younger kids pretend together for the joy of being. Older kids seem to pretend together for the joy of creating. So, where I might see younger kids playing a game where they're all pretending to be knights and dragons, for older kids, they're sitting together, talking out a story, taking different roles, imagining different potentialities, and often making something together as they do it, such as building the actual castle or fort or something. I once watched some middle school boys in my charge spend three solid hours without break building a sandcastle and talking out an elaborate invasion scenario for the castle, which they then carried out in the form of inundating it with water and rocks. It was all pretend play - but it didn't feel like they were playing at being knights or anything. It was more like the scenario for the knights was an excuse for being able to create something elaborate.

[Roadrunner]

Mine used to sit in the floor when he was three with bunch of legos and pretend play entire stories and battles. Now 9 years later he does the same and don’t you dare interrupt him in the middle. 

[ByGrace3]

I pretend played until around 15 I think . . . alone after 12/13, never wanting to admit that lol. My middle schoolers still play pretend. My odd will occasionally play Barbies with her sister or LEGO's all together, but it is rare for her for sure. My ds (11) and dd(9) are still very into pretend. DS with LEGO's and dd with anything including her fingers in the car 😉 

[lewelma]

My ds is 15 and a half and still does imaginative play.  He uses his tiny lego figures.  I can walk in and tell him to do xyz, and he will say, 'I need 5 more minutes to finish this scenario'  Many times he has expressed concern that this is not an OK activity for a high schooler, but I have reminded him that the Bronte sisters had imaginative play into the 20s, and that many novel writers use imaginative play to get inspiration for their artistic works.  My son is most creative with words and has had an adult-level creative writing style since the age of 12. When he was younger, I tried to get him to be creative with drawing, or sculpting, or music.  Why did I never see language as his form of creativity?  I've told him to stand tall, and embrace who he is. If he likes mock battles with small figures, that is not that different than mock battles in civil war re-enactments. My attitude is do what gives you joy.  

Ruth in NZ

 

[El...]

I'm pretty sure that the table top games my husband likes to play with friends count as imaginative play. There are little space ships, a battle, a plot line... Yep.

 

[AmandaVT]

I remember pretend play through upper school - at least through 6th and 7th, less in 8th. Not a lot of props or toys by those ages - more playing outside and creating scenarios or writing stories and acting them out. 

I see similar w/ DS and his friends. They'll hike into the woods pretending to hide from a bear or needing to create elaborate forts and such. 

[Michael D]

I totally utilized pretend play at least through about 4th grade. I then became big in sports and pretend play diminished mostly. Yes, I still would live a pretend play life through my favorite sports heroes.

[SKL]

I would say that it changes in kind.  (My kids are both 12.)  One of my kids plays pretend by imagining she is a beauty consultant.  I know this because her phone is full of videos of her doing this alone in her room.  😛

My other kid has her fantasies about the boy band she follows.

(I remember as a kid moving into adolescence - I had many secret fantasies about being rescued by guys whom I found attractive, or other encounters which were equally unlikely, LOL.  I also had fantasies of running away and surviving on my own.  And in high school, I wrote a fake autobiography about my life as a single mom of quadruplets.  Ha!)

With friends, my kids have imaginative ongoing projects such as making a horror movie.  They also play all sorts of things outdoors when they visit their 13yo male friend (who is in theater / creative type).  With girls at school, they pretend to be various BTS band members and act out stuff they have seen on the internet.  And my younger kid plays with actual horses.  They have weddings, birthday parties, etc. involving their equine friends.

In terms of toys, one of them was never big on toys, but the other always loved them, until earlier this year.  Now, they would rather use real stuff to do junior real life things.  The exception is their doll / bears that they sleep with.  They still treat them as if they were a little bit alive.  Also slime.  Don't ask me why slime never seems to get old.  (Myself - I think I finally lost interest in my baby dolls around age 10 or 12.  But I had real babies to play with instead.)

[Farrar]

Yes, the pretend play of, "we're going to do this giant project," is super common for middle schoolers, I think. We're going to start this company/make this art show/write and perform this movie/code this giant video game and so forth. And much of the time, they don't really intend to do it. I mean, sort of... but not really.

[kznelius]

On 4/2/2019 at 7:41 AM, Farrar said:

Yes, the pretend play of, "we're going to do this giant project," is super common for middle schoolers, I think.

 

Yes! At first I couldn't think of when this change happened for me personally. But this helped me to put it together. We went from building elaborate grass fort houses and and chasing imaginary friends in the forest, to creating strobe light/black light music videos and making the the movie "The Nightmare on 12th Street." I think this change probably happened around age 10 or 11.