Playing with dolls
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Von
Katrin F.
Why children should play with dolls
Whether fashionable dress-up doll, soft cuddly doll or realistic baby doll:
Dolls are the favorite toy of many children and are among the timeless classics of children's toys.
In addition to the many play options, this is certainly also due to the great importance of playing with dolls for children's development. Because when kids play with dolls and doll accessories, they not only enjoy the best entertainment, but are also encouraged in important areas of development. For example, puppet play stimulates emotional intelligence and language skills.
In this article, you will learn all about the many benefits of dolls and get to know different types of dolls and unique doll accessories.
Playing with dolls: positive effects
From an educational point of view, dolls for play provide added value that should not be underestimated. There are probably few other toys that can keep up with children's dolls in terms of supporting child development. After all, the positive effects that occur when children play with dolls relate to very different areas of development.
Puppet play appeals to your child on an emotional, social, cognitive and motor level and therefore supports them holistically.
Strengthening emotional and social skills
Unlike cuddly toys, dolls are clearly recognizable as "human" to children. This makes them particularly interesting in terms of emotional and social skills. Thanks to their human-like appearance, dolls offer your child the opportunity to identify with them. During play, it tries to put itself in the doll's shoes and in this way also deals with its own emotional world. How might the doll be feeling right now? Is it perhaps missing something? What needs does it have? Your child deals with all these questions when playing with the doll.
Puppet play therefore supports emotional learning, sharpens emotional intelligence and sometimes strengthens your child's empathy and sensitivity.
Children often project their own emotional feelings onto their dolls, making it easier for them to deal with their feelings in an age-appropriate way.
By playing with dolls and putting the dolls in emotional situations that they themselves are experiencing, they develop a greater understanding of the feelings they are experiencing. Ideally, they will even become more confident in expressing their feelings.
Perhaps the most popular puppet play is called "father-mother-child" and is the best example of how children simulate social interactions when playing with puppets. The child takes on the role of the father or mother and takes care of the puppet, imitating their parents or grandparents. These and other play opportunities invite your child to practise interpersonal interaction in a very playful way . Playing with dolls therefore also helps your child to better understand social relationships and to work through difficult interpersonal situations that they may have experienced in everyday life through play.
For children, their favorite doll is often like a friend they secretly confide in, care about and enjoy spending time with. By playing with dolls, children learn a lot about friendship and what it is like to care for the well-being of another. All in all, you could say that dolls are true "all-rounders" when it comes to promoting social and emotional skills.
Promoting language development and communication skills
Even if, realistically speaking, a doll cannot answer, many children have surprisingly intense conversations with their dolls. They ask how they are feeling, talk about their day, invent imaginative bedtime stories or admonish the doll if it doesn't follow the rules. The doll mummies and daddies often
-not only talk to the doll, but also for her. They give the doll their voice, so to speak, and thus conduct entire dialogs with themselves. It's no wonder that playing with dolls can improve your child's language skills and expand their vocabulary.
By simulating conversations, your child practises communicating with other people. Talking to the puppet is like a "dry run" in which your child can try out and test how communicating feelings, thoughts and needs works. Quieter children in particular often thaw out during puppet play and behave more communicatively towards their puppet than towards "real" people.
Encouraging creativity and imagination
When children play with dolls, there are no limits to their imagination. Because there are almost endless possible answers to the question "What can you play with dolls?". Your child can make up the wildest stories, invent their own characters and incorporate a wide range of doll accessories into their play. They can use their creative thinking, explore their imagination and slip into a wide variety of roles.
Doctor games are popular, for example, where your child takes on the role of a doctor and thoroughly examines their doll.
Variety of dolls: from traditional to modern
As dolls have been one of the absolute favorites among toys for many boys and girls for generations, the selection of products is now huge . From simply designed dolls to detailed little play dolls to technologically advanced, ultra-modern dolls, there are almost no limits.
You can discover the whole variety of dolls to play with in the Smoby Shop in the Baby Dolls & Doll Accessories category.
Dolls as perfect travel companions
Is your child tireless in their doll play? Then they will certainly be reluctant to do without their favorite toys when a day trip or vacation is coming up. Small dolls and easily transportable accessories are particularly recommended for doll play on the go. Our doll's prams make proud doll owners mobile and ensure that their beloved doll can also be with them far from home. This alone is worthwhile, because the familiar doll can provide security in a foreign country and give the child the feeling of having a little piece of home with them.
Doll accessories for a realistic everyday life as a doll parent
Apart from doll's prams, there are of course lots of other unusual doll accessories and play sets that enable even more diverse doll play. For example, your child can rock their little one to sleep at night next to their own bed with the Maxi-Cosi co-sleeper for dolls, care for them in the Baby Nurse bathroom or learn new and exciting things with them in the doll's nursery. Such accessories allow you to create numerous play scenarios, some of which are based on real life and others on the imagination of the dedicated doll parents. This results in plenty of variety to keep your child interested in their dolls for a long time.
Conclusion: Why does playing with dolls enrich children's everyday lives?
Playing with dolls and doll accessories not only promotes emotional and social skills, but also stimulates the imagination and creative thinking, while at the same time training communication skills.
The positive effect on children's development is manifold.
Furthermore, for many children, spending time with their favorite doll every day becomes a formative childhood memory that still stands for familiarity, fun and friendship many years later. All in all, playing with dolls can be described as an extremely enriching experience, to which we at Smoby are happy to contribute with high-quality products in our store.