Author’s practical guidance
Role-playing hard situations with toys
Source named in the book: PCIT · children's imagination and pretence research (Harris)
Play is where children work on things that were too big when they happened.
Say this now
“You be the doctor. I'll be the one who's scared.”
Hand them the powerful role and take the small one yourself.
“What happens next?”
The only direction the scene needs. Follow their answer even when it makes no sense.
Do this
- Let them decide who everybody is, including you.
- Play the frightened one badly and let them reassure you.
- Do not resolve the scene if they want to play it out the same way eleven times.
- Keep the props ordinary: a bear, a box, two figures.
- Notice which scene keeps coming back and say nothing about it.
Avoid this
- Taking over the scene to demonstrate the right way to handle it.
- "And what should the bear have said?" — turns play into a quiz about behavior.
- Reproducing the real event too exactly, especially one that frightened them.
If it repeats
Pretend play with objects starts around two, gets recognizable stories at three, and by four can run for a long time with several characters. Repetition of one scene is normal and usually stops on its own once whatever it was about has been worked through.
Why the book suggests this
Play is where children work on things that were too big when they happened. The bear goes to the doctor, the small figure gets left at daycare, the truck gets taken away. Nothing is being taught in these games; something is being processed.
Which is why the adult's job here is not to run the scene. A child who is handed a script is doing your exercise. A child who directs it puts themselves in the powerful role — the doctor, the parent, the one who leaves — and that reversal is the part that does the work.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Big Skills
45 prepared situations in this family area.