Role Playing With My Three Year Old Daughter

For her first birthday I gave my first daughter her first set of dice.

Big Plush Dice. We were sitting in her room recently and I was helping her clean up her toys. I grabbed a plush d6 off the floor and she told me that she likes dice and that Daddy plays games with them. I asked her if she wanted to play those games and she said yes. I asked her if she knew what kind of games they were and she was not sure.

I told her that they were storytelling games. I started "Once upon a time there was a princess named...?" She silently mouthed her name.

"This princess was walking through the forest one day when alooong came a spider and sat down beside her...and what did she do?"

—She kind of shrugged. I encouraged her tell me what she would do if there was a spider. She still was being hesitant.

"This spider was a biiiig spider, as big as your house, and it was hairy all over, and has big giant fangs!!"

She still didn't want to give in and tell me what she would do. So I prodded her a little.

"Would you Be Scared?"

—No (with that, 'Dad-you-know-me-better-that-that' tone in her voice).

"Would you fight the spider?"

—No.

"Well what would you do if there was a big giant spider, with eight Giant Eyes and ..."

I was trying to just come up with a situation for rolling the die so she had a basic understanding of why Dad likes dice so much and why he likes to share that obsession with her; and as imaginative as she is she was being a little hesitant. When all of a sudden the light clicked on and she realized that she could say anything.

—I would have a sword! A green one! And the Spider would Eat it!!

"Would it hurt the spider?"

—No, it would throw it up. Then it would go to its mommy and ask for a cloth.

I didn't get that at first, but after a few probing questions found that it was for cleaning up the throw-up.

Then the dog started barking like he does when someone is at the door. There was no one there—he does that a lot too, sometimes I swear he's hearing phantom noises. Unfortunately, that disrupted our little imagination game and we never did end up rolling the die.

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