What is Superhero Play?
Superhero play is a form of exploratory (pretend) play where children use their creativity and imagination to engage in and imitate action heroes or media characters they admire. (Exploring Early Childhood, 2009). Currently, superhero play has garnered a great deal of attention as it has become a topic of great interest and created some controversy among educators, child development experts and behaviorists who believe that there is a strong correlation between children who participate in it and the increase in incidences of violent, aggressive and disruptive behavior in children. Although some may argue that children who engage in Superhero play have more aggressive tendencies, I believe the benefits outweigh the deficits and will support it as an activity which will help children develop language, learn to socialize among their peers and understand and tolerate differences or barriers such as race, religion and socio-economic status-all factors which students must deal with at some point in their lives at school and in society..To this end, superhero play is a learning tool to help children develop and evolve and well functioning, compassionate individuals.
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I really liked your idea of talking about Super Hero play, I do feel like there’s lots of controversy over it and I enjoyed reading your posts and gaining a deeper understanding on what it is and the components involved in it. I personally would support Super Hero play but I know of a lot of educators who stop it as soon as they hear something about it. At my last practicum site, a little boy was singing a song from the Ninja turtles and talking about them and naming them for me and one of the teachers told him to stop. I was curious as to why, he was just telling me about them, but she continued on saying that she didn’t think his mother would like him talking like that. I felt really bad for him and I questioned myself what the teacher would do if he pretended to be a Ninja turtle.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your posts, you offer some really great ideas and made me see Superhero play in a new light. I supported it before but I feel like I have a better understanding of it now and I’m glad I got to read about it :)
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed my blog. And yes, there are a lot of controversy over this topic. There's still a lot of teachers and parents out there that may not agree with this type of play. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes but hopefully this blog will help them view Superhero Play in a more positive way.
Children should have the right to play and express their feelings. Superhero play is a form of dramatic play. They're learning role play, being someone else. I think as long as we supervised their play and set certain rules and limits, it'll be fine.