The Joy Of Role Games
Role games can become a reality.
Children are amazing to watch when they are growing up.
I am always amazed at the energy and vitality of children at play. And their imaginations are boundless when they become caught up in a game. They can take on any character they have come across and role games can become a reality.
Sometimes they take on the role of animals, or characters from a story that they have been told, and they truly believe they are this character. The importance of role games for children is immense. It enables them to show an aspect of their character that they are perhaps not fully comfortable with when they are just “being themselves”.But when they get involved in role games they can become anyone or anything they want to become. Very often they will become animal characters, because so many of their stories that they are told involve animals which take on human characteristics.The role games enables them to become someone else, but perhaps it also enables them to overcome shyness which they would normally feel if they were just being themselves. It is an essential part of their development.As a young child, my eldest daughter was always fascinated by the theater.It was a favorite activity for her as a child to be taken to the theater. She would become so involved in the story line of the plays that she would always come home and act out the role of her favorite character in the play.We would often find her engaged in a role games all on her own, transported to another world where she was some magical person with special abilities. When friends came to play, she would automatically include them in her role games and the story would develop as her friends also became caught up in the magic of the fantasy. Her love for the theater has never diminished.From her early days of role games, she developed into one of her schools’ most accomplished actresses, and was often given the lead role in school productions.The energy that she showed as a child was even more evident, and she loved every moment of this more “real” side to role games of her early childhood. Today, she is still involved in the theater, and has made this her chosen career.I am certain that the magic of those early role games encouraged her to be sure that this was always going to be part of her life.
