Play to stimulate your imagination.
We try to prevent Jorge from spending too much time watching TV or playing on the iPad. It's not that we have anything against it; in fact, we believe they are very useful tools. These "digital natives" amaze us with their mastery of technology. A couple of episodes of their favorite cartoons or a bit of puzzles on the iPad aren't bad. However, we have noticed that after he's been watching cartoons for a while, his behavior changes and he starts to get irritable, especially when we tell him it's time to turn it off. Fortunately, he has a formidable imagination and finds ways to entertain himself creatively without any problem. I have yet to hear him say, "Dad, I'm bored."
The best thing about encouraging him to use his imagination is seeing how he uses his creative thinking to solve problems. Chopsticks quickly become a bow and arrow if we need to hunt a cushion (I mean bison), and then we can use them to make a fire to roast it. I've seen him turn a toilet paper roll into a spyglass to find treasure, and ride a broomstick all over the house. When he's playing with the train, a storm suddenly hits and everyone needs shelter. He makes a house out of stories to shelter all the dolls until the storm passes. When children have active imaginations, they don't see problems, only solutions. In fact, we parents can learn a lot from this.
“When children have an active imagination, they don’t see problems, only solutions.”How do you motivate children to think creatively and use their imagination? It's certainly much more difficult now that we're in the information age, where the world is accessible with a single click and everything seems to have already been invented. The barriers of what's possible and what's true have no place in the imagination. In the creative mind of a child, dogs can talk, fish drive buses, and lions eat lettuce, which they love. Nothing is impossible. We need to encourage and extend this as much as we can. Innovation comes from the imagination, and that's one of the most sought-after skills of the 21st century. There are three things we can do to help our children's imaginations flourish:
- Provide them with a variety of toys that foster imagination and creativity. Avoid toys that "do everything themselves" and look for ones that leave room for them, so children can contribute their own ideas. Toys to Dream and Imagine have some suggestions.
- Play pretend with your child. I know we're all very busy and have very little time, but when you sit with them on the floor and search under the table for Redbeard's treasure or play sharks about to eat seals and have yogurt for dessert... In addition to the magical moment you have, you're also teaching them that pretending is so important that even Dad makes time to do it.
- Play along when they're being imaginative. If you're in the car and your child suddenly says, "Look, a very big dragon!" Look at him, confirm his point, and ask him what the dragon is doing there—whether he's lost or looking for a friend, or anything else you can think of to help him develop the story. But whatever you do, please don't tell him, "Dragons don't exist."
