About Dress Up Games

Children play dress up games to explore their imaginations and act out scenes from familiar stories or worlds all their own. Parents can collect dress-up clothes for children by saving old hand-me-downs or Halloween costumes, or by purchasing old clothes from thrift stores or yard sales. There are several games children can play using dress-up clothes that involve a lot of creativity and encourage children to expand their horizons.

1. Social Scenarios

Encourage children to act out common social scenarios to improve their verbal communication skills, as well as improve their comfort level while interacting with a variety of people. Dress-up options could include a wedding reception, a queen receiving guests in her royal court, watching a popular sporting event, going on an adventure and meeting friends along the way, or traveling on an exotic vacation.

2. Movies and Books

Dress-up is a way to ensure that children not only retain what they see and hear, but also can relay what they see and hear to others. Encourage children to read a book or watch a movie and then act out portions of the story, or pretend to be one of the characters from the story on a new adventure.

3. Understanding Adult Interactions

A common dress-up scenario is for children to pretend to act as adults with jobs and household responsibilities — primarily their parents. Allowing children to dress up as adults for games will allow the children to convey how they feel about an adult’s daily duties, as well as allow adults to correct or adjust any misconceptions children may have about the actions of adults. Consider scenarios like preparing and eating an imaginary dinner, going to work or tending to the yard.

4. Understanding Differences and Unique Backgrounds

Dress up games are an excellent way to help children understand the differences in backgrounds that they encounter in the real world. Encourage children to dress up as someone similar to or unlike themselves, and then have adventures or play games while dressed as that person. It would also be appropriate to encourage children to dress up as important historical figures and act out all the things that those figures did. Suggestions include Abraham Lincoln, Sacajawea, Marco Polo or an Egyptian pharaoh.