Making superheroes worthy of youngsters' admiration

''Kids are attracted to this play because it makes them feel powerful and strong," she says. ''If you ban it, it doesn't go away, they just hide it from you. If you ignore it, they aren't learning alternative messages." What she wanted was to show children they could feel powerful without doing violent things. The next time she saw some boys (and yes, this is almost exclusively a boy phenomenon) playing Mr. Incredible, she put a flip chart on an easel and sat them down.

''Let's talk about Mr. Incredible," she said. ''Why do you want to be him?"

''Because he can fly!" came the chorus. She wrote that down.

''What else do you like about him?"

''He wears a cool costume!" She wrote that down, too. (''I know they can't read," she says. ''But writing it down adds a level of importance to their words. That alone can make them feel powerful.")

Then she told them, ''Real people can't fly on their own. How can people fly?"

''Helicopters!"

Aha! She told them about medevac helicopters that rescue people and land on a roof. They thought that was pretty cool. For days, they made costumes, painted boxes big enough to sit in, pasted on propellers, and used tape to outline a landing site. Then they climbed in. Teachers called them superheroes. They could fly and be powerful and help people, not hurt them.

There are typically two reasons why young children are drawn to superheroes. The first is that they feel powerless. Superheroes are powerful. As new levels of cognition and fears kick in sometime after age 3, the ability to assume the persona of a superhero feels protective and empowering: ''I'm Spiderman! I'm can kill that monster under my bed!"

The second attraction to superhero play has to do with friendship. In the preschool years, children are interested and able to play in groups. Superhero play makes that easy; it comes with a script. ''If you're 5 and you walk on a playground and someone says, 'Let's play Power Rangers,' you know exactly what to do to be part of the mix," says veteran preschool educator Eric Hoffman of Cabrillo College Children's Center in Santa Cruz , Calif.