When young children move between fantasy and reality in their play, they’re doing much more than having fun. They’re building early critical-thinking skills that help them make sense of the world around them and, eventually, navigate increasingly complex digital media and technology.
Learning to tell what’s real from pretend through dramatic play has always been an important cognitive foundation. Today’s children are growing up in a world where digital experiences, AI-generated content, and reality can be hard to tell apart. The skills they practice early can help them become thoughtful, curious, and critical users of any tool for communication.
For young children, media literacy is less about learning what a device can do and more about practicing critical thinking and compassion through self-guided, open-ended play. No screens required!
Building Blocks
Picture a child holding a wooden block to their ear and pretending it’s a phone. They know the block isn’t really a phone, but they can imagine calling a friend, ordering a pizza, or checking in on a family member. They’re often recreating and making sense of something they’ve watched the grown-ups in their lives do.
Moving between what’s real and what’s imagined allows children to hold several ideas in mind at once, explore possibilities, and make connections. In the process, they feel empowered. Our job as the grown-up is simple: create a safe space, offer open-ended materials like wooden blocks, stuffies, sticks and leaves (not toys that do the work and play for you), and protect their time for self-guided play at home, school, and beyond.
As parents, caregivers, and educators, we mostly just need to watch and listen as much as possible. This is a switch from what has been referred to as “helicopter parenting,” to a somewhat new term called, “hummingbird parenting,” that I learned from a nature preschool director. Quick little check-ins. As needed, offer support and guidance, but then allow the space for the child to practice their independence.
Observing a child’s play can show us a great deal about what they do and don’t yet understand. It also holds up a mirror to our own behavior, and how they see us and the other grown-ups in their lives, which is a gift. It can often be difficult for young children to “find your words” but play is a language in itself. Their play invites us to reflect on how we model our own behaviors with and without the use of media and technology. Instead of lecturing or defending, we can listen to that form of unintentional feedback and adjust accordingly. Our children often see us in ways we can’t.
Dramatic play also gives children practice in perspective-taking and empathy. When they pretend to be a parent, a teacher, a doctor, or a favorite (or not-so-favorite) storybook or other media character, they try on different points of view. They begin to consider how others might feel, think, and respond. These experiences lay the groundwork for understanding others and making thoughtful decisions.
Learning to Trust Your Inside Feelings
The hard-learned lessons sometimes referred to as “street smarts” children and their grown-ups learn by practicing in real life can also, in time, be applied to virtual experiences.
Child safety educator Pattie Fitzgerald, founder of Safely Ever After, (safelyeverafter.com) promotes the concept of “tricky people” as an alternative to relying on what many grown-ups might remember as “stranger danger.” Rather than teaching children to fear unfamiliar people (sometimes we need help from people we don’t know) this approach helps them recognize unsafe behaviors and situations, even when the person involved is someone they know.
The distinction matters. Children need chances to think about what someone is asking them to do, how a situation makes them feel, and when to go to a trusted adult for help. The goal isn’t to make children suspicious of everyone or create stress. It’s to help them recognize warning signs, understand boundaries, and feel empowered to speak up.
Open-ended play, with a bit of trusted adult guidance, gives children a low-pressure space to explore these ideas. Through puppets, pretend scenarios with imaginary friends and foes, and storytelling, grown-ups can invite children to consider questions like:
“What could [the character] do if someone asks them to keep an uncomfortable secret?”
“Who could they go to for help?”
These conversations start with an open-ended question, which allows the child to contemplate, pull from what they know, and if they need more ideas, provide their grown-ups the opportunity to suggest a few strategies that can be played out.
For example, if someone asked Teddy Bear to keep a secret that made him feel uncomfortable or yucky inside, he could:
Tell a grown-up he knows is safe. Who are the grown-ups you know are safe?
Say loudly and proudly “I don’t like that!” Let’s practice that together, “I don’t like that!”
And in those open-ended, play-it-out scenarios, grown-ups can get a better idea of what their child knows, doesn’t know, or may have seen or experienced. Communicating through the language of play allows a safe place to find and become comfortable with the words to share about complex thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
This type of process is grounded in reality, but it uses pretend play as a tool for communication on the terms of the child, builds upon children’s emerging abilities to consider other perspectives, recognize problems, and imagine possible responses.
Play is not a substitute for explicit safety education that may need to be led by a professional pediatric health care provider, therapist, or social worker, depending upon the specific situation, but it can be a meaningful and accessible starting point.
The key for the grown-up is listening and contributing just enough to allow the child to drive the direction of the play.
In Time, Applying These Skills to Virtual Worlds
As children grow, the same self-reflective questions and corresponding strategies become relevant in new digital spaces. In an online game or virtual world, someone or something may seem friendly, use a familiar-looking avatar, or claim to be the same age as your child. A convincing image, voice, or digital identity doesn’t necessarily tell us who is really on the other side of the screen.
Shielding, blocking, and banning can completely avoid the situation in the first place, but we all know that in time our children will continue to grow as we did, and find themselves in new experiences, as we did, with or without us. So, how can we start to empower them today with the skills they will most probably need tomorrow?
As children get older, they’ll need more than rules about what to avoid. They’ll need age-appropriate practice and guidance around privacy, boundaries, manipulation, conditioning, and when to ask for help.
On Danny Joe’s Tree House, intended for children 3+ and their grown-ups, Teddy (my real-life Teddy Bear from childhood, which I now use as a puppet in my work) sings a seemingly simple strategy song:
I’m the boss of me.
I’m the boss of me.
I take care of my mind and body,
‘Cause I’m the boss of me!
As Danny Joe, I often add on a spoken reminder, “And you have grown-ups that help you to take care of your mind and body. And the grown-ups that love you the most want you to tell us how you feel inside if you don’t like something.” Teddy will often continue, “It’s my song when I sing it, but when you sing it it becomes your song. Let’s sing it together.”
There are so many different ways at every developmental age and stage that grown-ups can start building these habits by talking and playing about what information should stay private, what to do when someone asks to move to another space, and how to respond to requests for secrecy, personal images, or any interaction that feels uncomfortable.
It’s important to note that when we open these types of doors for play, sometimes the play might come from a firsthand experience, or it might come from something they saw in media, or something they heard about from a friend, or another secondary source, but even if we know something is just pretend, our feelings are very real.
The child specialist, Dan Gartrell, teaches us that there is always a root cause to a behavior. We just need to dig in a bit and take what he calls a guidance approach. (dangartrell.net)
Sometimes we avoid what makes us grown-ups feel uncomfortable or because we don’t want to risk projecting more than what is actually there, but it is important to remember that the language of play is safe. It is practice not only for the child, but also for us. We grown-ups can listen to our minds and bodies, too. And if we need help and support from a trusted fellow grown-up with more experience on a complex topic, we can always ask for help, as well.
These lessons connect directly to media literacy. The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) describes media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. At its heart, it means asking questions, examining messages, considering context, and making informed choices (namle.org).
Play Today, Think Critically and with Empathy Tomorrow
Media literacy doesn’t have to start with a YouTube video, a gaming platform, or a streaming app. It can begin with a cardboard-box spaceship, an imaginary tea party, or playing school with a favorite stuffed animal.
When we give children time and space to imagine, question, experiment, and consider others’ perspectives, we lay the groundwork for future learning, including navigating our rapidly evolving digital world thoughtfully and safely.
The foundation for thoughtful media use isn’t in what we are currently describing as AI. It’s a child learning to think critically, trust their instincts, recognize boundaries, and ask for help when something doesn’t feel right. And when we join in this type of play, we’re practicing those same skills too. People are more important than the tools we use for communication.
And that’s for real.
References
National Association for Media Literacy Education. Core principles of media literacy education. https://namle.org/resources/core-principles/
Safely Ever After. https://safelyeverafter.com/about/
Dan Gartell. https://dangartrell.net/ https://dangartrell.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/seven-guidance-practices-for-challenging-behavior.pdf