How to turn your child into someone else.

I’m starting to amass a fair old collection of play hats. From pirates (yarr) through builders’ hard hats and princess’ tiaras to those doctors head mounted cd things. Over the years of childcare I’ve found play-hats to be an invaluable resource for getting inside the kid’s head.

Hats, perhaps more than any other piece of costumery do allow kids to be someone-else for a while. It’s roleplaying in one simple step. You see your average child doesn’t have such a concrete notion of self as us encrusted grown-ups. You may have noticed this if you’ve been feeling a little grumpy and your kids have come bundling in. They’ll pick up and mirror your mood back to you with out pause (at which point you could choose to grump back at their grumping… but that way madness lies, doesn’t it?)

As they enact these other roles you may hear then saying things you’d not expect. No2 child in his copper’s hat became a young dictator, despite his usually mild self. Add a tiara and they become imperious, a cowboy stetson makes them crusty whilst an astronaut’s helmet makes them adventurous. Children are incredible things. To do roleplay like this they must have absorbed the roles these hats imply, whilst usually never even having met cowboys or princesses. Very clever little beings even if they struggle to tie their shoes. Taking on such roles allows them to say things that they’re thinking, but which their usual role of child forbids them from saying. The child in a police hat may voice authority over the parent whilst the doctor cd thing or nurses tricorn puts them in a caring role for their carers. So much can be learnt through this play.

The trick, if there is one, is to buy some big costume hats too. Being a little pirate captain is no fun unless you’ve a hulking growed-up crew. A ward sister is no fun without a bandaged patient. Builder work together to build and fix the house. Policemen need parents in trilbies to occasionally become a detective to give the wee ones clues to capture the cookie thief. Even a simple folded newspaper hat make you a Little John to a diminutive Robin Hood.

So what would be in your ideal hat collection?  What would give your kids a voice?

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, play, 2up, 3up, 5up, imagineering