My daughter’s special interest (she’s 6) is Harry Potter. I’m wondering if it’s possible to lean too much into a special interest. I understand that it’s a safe space for her and brings her comfort. She has two friends at school that indulge it, they whittle sticks into wands, wear play silks as robes and make potions all day long at her forest school. But I can see they are tiring of it and ask her to play something else which she won’t do. In the car, we listen to the audiobooks, at night we read the books, and on the weekend we have movie nights (she doesn’t watch TV / use devices) and it’s always HP. She’s not interested in toys unless they’re something magical. We lean into it, she often calls my husband Hagrid, and wants to be called Hermione, because it makes her happy, but I wonder if it’s harmful to spend so much time in Harry Potter world. She has other interests like ice skating and riding her bike but our days are mostly HP and we often use the HP audiobook as a tool when she’s having a hard time (she’ll ask for it.) I’m considering trying to bring these interests into the real world, like teaching her about herbology, and planting a “witches garden” but it brings me back to my main question - should I be trying to extract her from HP world more, or is it ok to lean into it even more in that way?

Posted by amanderm at 2024-05-05 16:31:15 UTC