Little kids like to pretend that they’re princesses or batman or pirates and so on. While doing so they and their friends have make believe adventures. But how old is the average kid when they give up that sort of play with others? At what age do other kids begin to feel uncomfortable to play make believe with the last kid to give it up?
I have an idea for a story that would partly involve a fantasy acted out (the kid will sort of believe that they have a quest to help a sick sibling and eventually have to be set straight about the reality of the illness by a parent) and I’m trying to figure out how old to make the main character and their friend. I want him or her to be on the cusp of being too old to believe that the fantasy quest could really help the younger sibling, but old enough to be trusted to play outside the yard. How old are we when the line between pretend and reality stops being blurry?
The kids in Bridge to Terabithia are in 5th grade, so that’s around ten, right? Is it still common to act out make believe at that old? I know that the kids in Freak the Mighty are even older, probably thirteen, but those kids aren’t exactly typical.
I know that I put aside my barbie dolls forever the summer before 6th grade, but I can’t remember when I last acted out make believe with friends, though younger than that obviously. On the other hand, I never had an imaginary friend or anything, so maybe I just didn’t have much of that sort of imagination to begin with.
So, what do you recall of this in your own childhoods, or maybe your kids?
I think you’re right that it’s around the boundary of elementary / junior high. I continued to play imagination games fairly late, as well, but I think around 6th / 7th grade it got more structured, more narrative, and more consisten over time.
When it came to climbing in and out of caves that were really boxes and flying an airplane that was actually my bed, I was done by the time I was nine. However, my creative energy didn’t really go anywhere, it just shifted focus. I started writing long stories for myself in my head - that I was living on a farm and exploring the woods all day, or that I woke up one day and knew how to fly. I was essentially doing the same thing I’d done as a child, except I wasn’t acting it out anymore. I daydreamed so much that my grades were absolute shite, despite being fairly bright.
I still do this today (though I can control my attention span a bit better now). And, I guess, wouldn’t cosplaybe a form of basic imaginative play? I get that there’s a narrative or scoring or something involved, but at the end of the day, those guys who cosplay at the park are still dressed up as knights, and fighting with plastic swords.
I think I was about 11-12 when I stopped wanting to play “He-Man dates Strawberry Shortcake and saves Moonlight the Unicorn from the evil Cobra Commander” with my brothers. I remember quite vividly how upset they were when I didn’t want to play pretend with them anymore.
10 to 12 sounds about right. Although some kids might continue acting out small elements of imaginary play in private (I know my hairbrush was a microphone while I was the new co-lead singer in Duran Duran well into high school :p), most transform it into an inner monologue drama by 5th or 6th grade.
My daughter is 11 and she still set up imaginary scenes and parties for her stuffed animals and model horses, but she doesn’t play dress-up or act scenes out with her friends anymore, as far as I know. I’d agree about the fantasy stuff going “inside” at just before this age.
I think my 9-year-old son could still be persuaded about some kind of “magical” quest, but he’s have some doubts.
IME at around nine or ten, you start internalizing your make believe, and while you may *want *to keep believing magic is possible, the rational part of your brain is developed enough to know it’s really not.
However, that emotionally want vs. rationally know schism is vulnerable to all kinds of childhood trauma and issues. If you don’t grow up quite as fast as your classmates, or if you’ve got bad shit going down in your life (like a seriously ill sibling), you might resist the rational part of your brain for a few more years. There’s a strong, recurring theme in children’s lit that sheer force of belief can overcome anything, too, and some kids take up that cause: “I’m the kid who makes magic possible.” I’ve seen this get compounded when two kids in this frame of mind join forces.
All of which is to say, I’d find the premise you describe believable with ordinary kids up to about age nine or ten, and possible given appropriate framing details up to twelve. I can see thirteen being possible, but harder to support.
ETA: Actually, it might be the “old enough to be trusted to play outside the yard” part that’s more contentious! That age has changed a lot in many US neighborhoods in the last generation.
