Great Pretenders Family Spotlight: Sarah, Kevin and Olivia

Meet Sarah & Kevin and their little one Olivia! In this day and age of television and tablets they try to engage Olivia in other ways like pretend play! 

My name is Sarah and I am a restaurant manager at a popular coffee chain restaurant here in Canada (can you guess which one!?) my husband Kevin is a heavy equipment diesel mechanic- a fancy way to say he fixes construction equipment- we have been together for 5 years now and we welcomed our beautiful daughter Olivia in 2015, she is 3 years old now and she has the biggest imagination I’ve ever seen on a child, or adult for that matter! She certainly keeps us busy and on or toes with her various pretend games throughout the day- whether she is pretending to be a pirate, a princess, or a knight in shining armor there is never a dull moment in our house!

In the day and age of television and tablets we try our hardest to engage Olivia in other ways and encourage her to use her imagination and explore and learn through play- we spend the majority of time outdoors especially in the summer time and allow Olivia to take the lead with what games she wants to play. 

Right now she is really into firefighters and likes to pretend to be a firefighter and rescuing people. Previously her favourite game was pirates- it is always changing every week!

Recently she was playing with friends and her friends wanted her to pretend to be a teacher- but as I mentioned she is really into firefighters so at first she got angry and said she didn’t want to be a teacher she wanted to be a firefighter- then they compromised and she was teaching her friends how to be a firefighter! 

Her advice for parents considering pretend play in their homes is to follow your child’s lead (as long as they aren’t doing anything dangerous). You would be surprised at how far their imagination can go! Engage with them and play along, ask questions and answer and questions they have as well!

I found great pretenders on Instagram one day and have loved following the page. I was so excited to become a brand rep! Their products are high quality and engaging and both myself and Olivia are enjoying them!