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Most children possess an amazing skill. The ability to lose themselves in creative play. They can create and enter fantasy worlds. A stick becomes a gun, a pan of old leaves a deadly spell and a few sheep the Viking invaders. And it’s real. Sometimes I try to play with my children. I think if I 'fake it to make it' maybe I too will be able to shrink and turn into a mouse scurrying along the forest floor. Sadly, no matter how much I try I’m just me pretending to be a mouse; my knees begin to creak and I remember the washing up. The other mice are sad for me as I crawl back to domesticity but, not for long, because the cats are about and there are games to play!
"Roar!"
Imagination - most adults have it a bit. We can imagine what a new bath will look like but unless we have uncontrollable delusions not many of us enter fantasy worlds. Yet fantasy isn’t just a childish game, it is a valuable tool used by all inventors and scientists. Every plan, business, invention and theory in the world started as an idea and was imagined before it’s conception. Einstein invented his theory of light by imagining he was a sun beam. Successful adults who have active imaginations are generally revered and referred to as visionaries.
However even this type of imagining is pretty flat compared to the energised playing that children do.
There is no time limit on learning to read but an active imagination seems to shrink with age and the ability to lose oneself in a fantasy rarely survives far into double figures. I think of my children’s imagination as something precious and try to protect it from being worn away.
The more conscious a child becomes the less able he is to play. Joel and Max used to play a great game where they had a Lego spaceship in the middle of the room and pretended they were in it. They would tell the story to each other and run back and forth and round and round the room in their excitement. Over and over again I asked them not to jump on the furniture. Until finally they stopped the game. They had never jumped on my furniture because they were badly behaved. They weren’t in the living room at all, they were lost in a fantasy. When they tried to play the game whilst remembering not to jump on the furniture they ceased to be astronauts and became little boys in the living room.
The other thing I did that ruined this game was to tell them how fascinating it was to watch them run round the room. Viewed through an onlookers eyes I guess the game became reduced to something rather silly, not an epic adventure, just two boys jumping on the couch. This unwelcome dose of reality embarrassed them. I wish I’d kept my gob shut because I miss them playing this game, and the settee was knackered anyway!
Holly, my 17 year old, says that when she has kids she will never stop them jumping on the settee and they will still be playing unmanned Lego when they're 44!
This story does make you realise how vulnerable the imagination is. Its like a precious orchid. Nowadays I would prefer not to hassle the kids to clean their bedroom or their potion pots. The more conscious they become of the “inevitable consequences” of playing the less they’ll choose to participate. After all you don’t need to clean up after yourself after reading a book! I am also aware that it is inevitable that my children’s peer group will influence them but I will do my best to nurture their imaginations as much as possible.
I believe that in ancient tribes with few possessions and little anxiety about mess, the adults retain the ability to imagine and play (with masks and rituals) far better than we do.
Holly retained the ability to genuinely play with her younger brothers until she was 15 (now like me she has to fake it) but her imagination is still strong and a powerful tool for her and her sister Ceili. Ceili's power to imagine means that she can multi task easily and has been one of the youngest stage managers in Britain, remembering everything that needed doing because she can imagine it happening. Holly is studying for a National Diploma in the performing arts at college. Twice she has been chosen to represent the college at workshops; in March she represented Wales for two weeks doing shows in Italy. Her imagination is her greatest asset.
I love to eavesdrop on my children playing, to feel their excitement and borrow some of their ideas and energy. It will be a sad day for me when they no longer want to play. I believe that if we can parent with enough sensitivity and sympathy that our children retain a vivid imagination we will have done them an enormous service.
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
"The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination. But so few have imagination that there are 10,000 fiddlers to one composer." Charles F Kettering
"Imagination is the true magic carpet." Norman Vincent Peale
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
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