Do Your Kids Play At Being Royalty?

[Debbie1]

When I was in middle school that time my school organizes fancy dress competition. Than I play this game. I really enjoy that day.

[roseroyal]

I do not have kids, but some of my best memories of childhood are playing Princess, another game I called " Royal Wedding" where I would pretend to be Diana or Fergie on their wedding day,because Mom let me watch VCR recordings of thier weddings( which both took place before I was born)
I was actually jealous of them- I thought they were getting a Cinderella fairy tale- ironic if only I knew.
And by far my favorite thing to be for Halloween : a Princess

[Lady Claire]

When my brother was 3 he told my mom that dad was the king and he was the prince. When my mom asked him what she was, he told her that she was the maid! He still to this day, over 20 years later, has not lived that down.

[nascarlucy]

When I was a little girl, I told my mother that I wanted to be a princess and live in a castle where everyone would take of me. I would have someone else clean my castle and cook my meals. Someone else would fix my hair. Someone else would clean up after any kids I had.

I remember playing with some friends pretending to be a Princess when I was a child. I demanded that they do everything for me. They were worn out after a while as they cleaned my room, my kitchen. I sat there painting my nails and sitting back and enjoying myself. When my friend was the Princess, I did nothing for her and tried to get out of doing anything or if I had to do something did it so badly that I never would be asked again to do that particular task. I got away with this role playing but did not get away with this when I had to do chores around the house.

[roseroyal]

@ Lady Claire- that is so cute! Out of the mouths of babes do come some interesting ideas!
@ Nascarlucy- Your friends deserve a royal medal! Too bad you still had to do chores...

[Mermaid1962]

I was always a princess for Hallowe'en, and I dreamed sometimes of being a princess. I memorized and sang along with my Cinderella record when I was little. I had it bad!

Originally Posted by roseroyal

And by far my favorite thing to be for Halloween : a Princess

[RoyalistRiley]

I used to play being the "King" all the time as a child. No one was ever willing to be bossed around.

[lucien]

Originally Posted by Lady Claire

When my brother was 3 he told my mom that dad was the king and he was the prince. When my mom asked him what she was, he told her that she was the maid! He still to this day, over 20 years later, has not lived that down.

LOL!!!Too funny!Poor mom.

[nascarlucy]

I was told when I was a teen that I should have been a princess as I liked to be pampered and taken care of. I still do although I take care of myself now.

I was told that I never would be a good Queen because I was too opinioned and if I felt passionate about someone or something would often go on and on. I not very good at hiding my emotions (my facial expressions says it all), even though I don't usually openly react to things but you know exactly what I'm thinking by looking at me.
No King or heir to the throne would put up with such a woman I was told. Henry VIII would banish me to the tower and leave me there. Others would send me packing, never to return. I got a good laugh out of this when people said this to me.

[Betsypaige]

When my younger sister and I were kids, we would play Queen with my older sister. My younger sister and I would give ourselves weird names and hide in closets until the Queen called us out. After that, we'd have to do her bidding, lol

[AnnaNotherThing]

No they don't because I don't encourage it...it is not the best to encourage your kids to aspire to something that I see as token and elitist...But that is just crusty old me

[Daria_S]

I personally didn't play 'Princess' because I spent my early childhood in USSR, where anything monarchy-related was frowned upon. However, I did read a good deal of books that dealt with children of the upper classes before the Revolution, and sometimes my classmate and I would pretend that we're children who have aristocracy for parents and have governesses and pretty dresses. Thankfully, the teacher didn't say anything.

When I was working at a daycare center, one of the girls adored Disney princesses (Aurora was her favorite), and she always wanted to be her. She even dressed as her for Halloween.

When I was student teaching, we were discussing careers and one of the girls said that she wanted to be Kate Middleton, so that she could go to university and marry a prince. I thought that was rather funny, but I had to tell her that that position was already filled.

[COUNTESS]

No, because my children would have thought it an idiotic idea. To them, even, today, it it an anachronisim, that exists in some places. Personally, my sister and I did play some of these games, but we also played witches and dragons and stuff like that. Never considered it was real.

[Lenora]

I've never had such a case before,but last week my cousin asked me to tell her 12 years old daughter something interesting connected with royal history and modern royals(in English).Basically,it seems simple enough to tell some elementary things,but she got interested and I began thinking about some interesting materials or tales.She enjoyed very much watching Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's interview and wedding.Of course it is quite simple from one side,as there is a plenty of books and articles (including Wiki)about royalty.

Anyway it would be interesting to know the different ideas about other materials and about what royals you should have told to a child or a teenager.

[MisterMehmet]

i told children of story of teh queen of england and i say she is old woman with many jewls and crowns and has a good and long family. but i say it's not gr8 that they divorced and they laugh so much when i tell that princess diana says camilla looks like a dog. they can not understand.

[PrincessKaimi]

I think the fact that the Queen Mother was Scottish, and descended from Scots and Welsh royalty is interesting. As far as I can tell, Prince Charles would have very little Welsh in him (or no Welsh at all) had his grandmother not been Miss Bowes-Lyon. The fact that Elizabeth's family turned Strathmore into a hospital during World War I and hired nurses, while Elizabeth provided emotional support to soldiers is also fascinating. Strathmore got a reputation for being able to comfort and rehabilitate the soldiers with the worst shell shock, and Elizabeth was credited with much of that success. She kept in touch with some of the men for the rest of their lives. She turned her future husband down on his first two marriage proposals, but then accepted and went on to become the mother of Queen Elizabeth. Naturally, a teenager would probably like watching the movie The King's Speech after hearing about Elizabeth.

Helen Mirren's The Queen is another excellent bit of modern media that a teen or child might enjoy. The importance of horses to both Queen Elizabeth and her mother (they divided up their interests, I believe Queen Elizabeth took the "racehorse" bit and the Queen Mother took the "steeplechase" bit - someone correct me here if I've got it wrong...is interesting to a child (and of course watching the original National Velvet, while not about royalty, is still about a sport that royals and aristocrats still favor (along with polo), and Princess Anne is of course, an incredible horsewoman.

I think the fact that the Queen married for love and is still with her handsome prince is a lot of fun for a child (and there are youtube videos of her, much younger, introducing us to the Crown Jewels, and bits of news about her coronation and, I believe, her wedding).

And don't you think kids and teens would enjoy seeing pictures of Prince Charles and company in their kilts? Both of his parents have a bit of Scottish blood in them, and they are very proud of it (although the amount of geography a child or teen would learn just by looking at the immediate ancestry of Elizabeth and Philip is amazing: Elizabeth's great grandmother was a Danish princess; Prince Phillip's father was of course Prince of Greece and Denmark, his paternal grandfather was King of Greece, his great grandfather was King of Denmark, one of his great great grandfathers was Nicholas I, Tsar of all the Russias.

My kids still find it interesting (they are in their 20's) that Prince Phillip's great great grandmother was Queen Victoria - who is also Queen Elizabeth's great great grandmother. So that makes them third cousins, I believe (someone correct me here, again, if I am wrong).

That's what comes to mind, anyway. What a fun topic.

[Daria_S]

I remember trying to get my younger sister into royalty by showing her pictures of the children of the last Tsar of Russia. She thought they were very pretty, and wanted to know more about them. At the end though, all she wanted was to look at pictures of younger Nikolai II (when he was a pre-teen/teen), because she found him good-looking. All interest in the concept of royalty or its' historical impact was gone.

When I was student teaching last spring, I wanted to talk to my group of second and third graders about Faberge Easter eggs (we were coloring eggs, and I thought it would be interesting). When I told them that these eggs were made of jewels and belonged to different European Royal Houses (now of course primarily the Windsors), they started asking questions about how one becomes a monarch. I tried to explain, and afterwards, wished I used the classroom computer to go on the British Monarchy site and see what was there for primary school students.

I think the key is to start out with something that will get the child hooked; be it some fancy jewel, or a picture of someone royal close to the child's age, that way, there can be a connection to the child, and the concept won't be seen as foreign as it might if introduced randomly and from a historical perspective.

[Lenora]

Thank You for your suggestions!

[fandesacs2003]

I do not have children, but when I was a kid I was constantly playing Sissy, and especially when she was chosen by Emperor Franz-Josef, instead of her sister Elena!

This was my fisrt contact to royalty!

[Rhys82192]

Well in France, there is a family tradition held every January 6, Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord (or the Adoration of the Magi), where children eat a flat almond pie called a "galette". On each galette, there is a charm hidden within it, and the son/daughter who finds that charm will be crowned King/Queen of the Night, and the whole family will do whatever he/she commands at them!