Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Girls and Their Dolls ~ Encouraging Doll Play

On page 422 in my book, Black Dolls A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion, mini profiles of African American (AA) girls and their dolls are preceded by the following passage:

Doll play allows little girls to exercise their innate nurturing characteristics. During times of doll play, girls usually imitate or reenact the nurturing received from their mothers or other female caregivers. Healthy role play and doll play are vital to a child’s development. It is even more vital that doll ownership includes dolls that mirror a child’s image. Seeing one’s self in a positive light aids in the development of positive self-esteem and self-worth. When a little girl sees beauty in dolls that look like her, specifically an AA girl – dolls that have hair like hers, beautiful deep skin color like hers, facial features like hers – her form of beautify is personified and she is unfazed by anything to the contrary.  (Copyright 2008)

Last week, I watched the first part of the following 9-1/2-minute Youtube video. I viewed it in its entirety today and thought I'd share it here.  What are your thoughts?
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3 comments:

  1. I agree with her that there needs to be diversity in a girl's doll collection and that it is very important that a child has a doll that looks like her. We live in a diverse society, so I think it's important in the doll role playing to be able to have them interact in a positive way. I also like the part about encouraging girls to have doll play. Of course not all girls like dolls, so there are of course needs to be some alternatives. She has some good recommendations.

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  2. Interesting video, thanks for sharing that Debbie. I agree with her that our little girls need dolls that look like them but also should have diversity in their collections. I like how she described the textures and preferable features of each doll too! It was a nice, thoughtful video.

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  3. I enjoyed this video - thanks for sharing! - and although I don't have children, I was impressed with her positive spin on doll play. I noticed that she had some Barbies with "Black" hair - Generation Girl Nichelle, Cali Girl Christie from 2004, and Princess of South Africa Barbie.

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