Pretend play is always contextual. Kids naturally imitate and make play from the things that they see around them. When I was studying how kids create video at Toca TV, kids as young as as 4 years old would, unprompted, start their videos with “Hi guys” and end them with a finger point down and the word “Subscribe!” like they had seen all of their favorite YouTubers do. When I was a teacher in the Gambia, I saw toddlers pick up sticks and pretend to sweep the compound like they saw their moms do, or wrap cloths around their bodies to pretend to carry their babies. Kids play school and kitchen and Frozen, because that’s what they see.
One of my coworkers, in a channel dedicated to how we are all individually dealing with our particular brand of Corona struggles, shared a picture her daughter drew of what she is seeing her mom do day in, day out. She folded a piece of paper in half. On the tap half she drew two smiling faces. On the bottom half, she drew her version of a keyboard, with two emoji keys and a tetris-style array of other buttons. When asked what she was drawing, she said it was her and mommy on a Zoom call.
Suddenly, the mystery of what mom and dad do when they leave for work for the day is gone. The mundane meetings, spreadsheets, and paperwork are becoming something to emulate and play with.
Just like husbands and wives are learning about the work-place personas of their partners (we’ve all seen the “let’s circle back” tweet), so to are kids being given even more examples of what it means to be a grown up.
Media companies are leaning into this new normal as well. Sesame Street has risen quickly to the occasion, recording and releasing a segment called “Elmo’s Playdate”, where all the normal kind of play that Elmo and his friends takes part in is done via a Zoom call, complete with the klutzy Grover somehow flipping his camera upside down and consistently muting himself. (Notice the similarities between Grover in that segment and my own father on a recent family Zoom call… you can always count on Sesame Street to really capture the true family experience).
Kids will always pretend play, and will always attach their particular brand of creativity to what they see the people or role models around them doing. As time spent indoors, in the presence of their parents, continues to grow, I imagine that kids will learn and be exposed to habits their parents exhibit like never before. I imagine kids holding board meetings, kids giving feedback to high performing employees, and yes, even kids announcing in that adorable kid lisp “Let’s circle back next week.”