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Would you like to play a new game called ‘Let’s pretend?
Okay, what we do is this, I’m going to tell you a story and I want you to close your eyes and pretend as hard as you can that you can see the things in the story. First of all though, I wonder if you can pretend that you’re a big rag doll. Rag dolls (or soft toys) are limp and floppy; see if you can make your left arm and hand limp and floppy and tell me when you think it is.
(Wait for a response). Good, let’s test it then. I’ll lift up your right hand and left it drop gently onto the bed (your lap; the chair; whatever). If you’re really, really limp and floppy then your hand will drop down like a wet dish-cloth.
(Lift up hand and drop gently; if the child’s hand goes down slowly then he is not fully relaxed. Demonstrate how you want him to feel but don’t persist if he seems unwilling).
Now see if you can’t close your eyes and just pretend that the eyelids are stuck together. Pretend they’re stuck so tightly together that they won’t open at all.
(If the child opens his eyes then tell him that he’s not pretending hard enough, and make the request again. However, some children insist on keeping their eyes open throughout. Don’t worry about this, they can still visualise well with the eyes open).
I want you to imagine that you’re a young bird and that you’ve just learned to fly on your own. You’ve been out with your mummy and daddy a few times and now it’s time for an adventure and you’re flying up into a lovely blue sky. Your wings are flapping up and down as your body lifts up higher and higher and higher. And the higher up you go the smaller everything below you looks and the more comfortable you feel. When you’re as high as you want to go then slow down a bit and take a look at the earth beneath you.
As you look down you can see that you’re flying over a lovely field of yellow flowers. Around the edge of the field is a row of trees and on the other side of the row of trees is a pretty stream. Now because you’re a bird you have very special eyesight and you can see right down into that stream, and you can see some tiny fish swimming around, and some smooth round pebbles at the bottom of the stream and some tiny black tadpoles darting here and there. Growing out of the stream are some long, thin blades of green grass and a few white lily leaves. And sitting on one of the lily leaves is an ugly green frog.
Look around and notice what else you can see. Maybe a rabbit peeping out from behind one of those trees? Or perhaps a grasshopper or a ladybird? What colour is the ladybird? How many spots does she have? There is an ant scuttling across the grass and he’s carrying something on his back.
As you look down at all these little creatures you become very curious about what they’re doing. And you begin to fly down to join them. Feel yourself going down.
And as your feet touch the floor, an amazing thing happens. You’re back to yourself again. A little boy called (name), who’s three years old, and the ladybird has changed into (name of little girl next door), and the rabbit has changed into (name some friends), and all your friends from nursery are here.
You’re all going on a magic journey. Suddenly everything around you is changing into a wonderful magic playground. There’s a magic roundabout that goes round and round and round and round. (said in a chant). Round and round and round it goes. And you’re going round and round and round. I wonder what you’ll feel like when you get off the roundabout?
Next you wobble over to the swings and sit on one. The seat is hard underneath your bottom and you can feel your fingers around the cold metal chain and you push your feet back and then out to make yourself go higher. And you go higher and higher and higher. Up and up, until you can see for miles and miles around.
Soon the swing begins to slow down and eventually stops, and you jump easily off and run over to the slide. And from the top of the slide you glide easily and smoothly down. You go down and down and down. And the deeper down you go, the sleepier you become. And the sleepier you become the deeper down you go. And the slide just seems to go down and down and down forever.
Whilst you’re drifting deeper and deeper down, you can begin to wonder about what you’ll see at the bottom of this slide. There could be elves and fairies, princes and kings, or perhaps wizards or magicians. I wonder what you’ll discover at the bottom of the slide.
When you reach the bottom you can go and join your new friends for a wonderful adventure. Drift into dreamland. You can swim oceans or fly into space with the help of your new friends, you can do anything at all here, because it’s a magical, mystical place, and it’s yours.
And you can visit here again another time. In fact you can really begin to enjoy going to sleep and discovering your wonderful imagination. And when you wake up in the morning at 8 o clock, you’ll feel so comfortably refreshed, you’ll have really enjoyed your sleep.
(By this time the child should (hopefully) be in a deep sleep and you can tiptoe out of his room).