2. Allow your children to transform your dining room table into a fort. Let it stay up a few days so the fort theme can develop and extend over time.
3. Go out of your way to bring in same-aged playmates. Your two-year-old probably engages most effectively in pretend play with you, but as your child moves into the fourth year, playmates more fully satisfy and support each other's world of make believe.
4. Try not to interrupt children's play. If you must take your astronaut to the grocery store, let him stay in his space suit for the excursion. When it's time to eat lunch, maybe he can eat in his closet-turned-space-capsule.
5. When you search for a preschool for your child, notice if the curriculum provides for and values pretend play. Is there a housekeeping corner, a grocery store, a block corner? Do the teachers themselves get involved in children's dramatic play?
6. Play along if your child creates an imaginative playmate. Often children use imaginative friends as an emotional counterpart: The shy child may create a friend named Gagas who is brave and outgoing. Go ahead and set a place for Gagas at the table, but if he's blamed for throwing food on the floor, say, "Gagas is pretend. He didn't throw food on the floor, you did."
