Discuss Vygotsky's view of make-believe play

What will be an ideal response?

Lev Vygotsky saw make-believe play as the ideal social context for fostering cognitive development in early childhood. As children create imaginary situations, they learn to follow internal ideas and social rules rather than their immediate impulses. For example, a child pretending to go to sleep follows the rules of bedtime behavior. A child imagining himself as a father conforms to the rules of parental behavior. According to Vygotsky, make-believe play is a unique, broadly influential zone of proximal development in which children try out a wide variety of challenging activities and acquire many new competencies. Pretending is also rich in private speech—a finding that supports its role in helping children bring action under the control of thought. And preschoolers who spend more time engaged in sociodramatic play are better at regulating emotion and at taking personal responsibility for following classroom rules. These findings support the role of make-believe in preschooler's increasing self-control.