I haven't written in a while but figured it was time to get back into the swing of things. Now that my daughter is approaching 3, I have seen some amazing things from her. Where to start....Imagination. The last many, many months, she has developed an unbelievable imagination. It is truly amazing to watch her and listen to her play and interact with her imagination. What does she do??? Well first, she has many imaginary friends such as Big Bad Wolf, Firetruck, Dumptruck, Monster, Lion, birds, alligators, to name a few. After doing some recent research on imagination I have realized much of what she does has a purpose. She loves to watch firetrucks drive by our window on the street, but at times, is scared to walk down the hall because she thinks she hears one. She loves the story of the Little Red Riding Hood but at times, is scared of the Big Bad Wolf. Same with her other imaginary friends. What I just learned is this is her ability to cope with her fear. Sometimes during her imagination times, her friends are nice and she plays with them, and sometimes they aren't so nice. We even have to go to the extent of telling her we are taking the birds home so they don't bother her when she is sleeping.
Recently I took her skiing and after a few ski runs, Monster was skiing with us too. When he fell, I had to pick him up. It was quite comical as I played along with her, yes in public, pretending to pick monster up after he fell, while other people were around. But I sure wasn't going to damper her imagination. I play along with her when she includes me in her imagination play. I never tell her there is no such thing. I can't imagine what that would do to her as she is so vivid in her play. She has 2 way conversations with her friends, nods her heads at them, laughs with them, it is truly comical.
My favorite is what she created most recently. Her dad went on an 8 day trip to Austria a couple weeks ago. Even though we have Skype, with the time change we couldn't connect all the time so we went days without seeing or talking to dad. One day she was playing and she started to talk to her dad and run around the house like he was chasing her. I was flabbergasted. She created another imaginary friend, her daddy. After reading about it, I truly believe this was her way of coping with him being gone and not being able to talk to him or see him. It actually made me so proud of her as she is a total Daddy's girl and she found away to cope with her daddy's absence.
I often wonder where she came up with her imagination but as I reflect on the last 3 years, I think some of the choices we have made as parents has helped with this.
What are they you ask?
We don't have the tv on when she is around, we don't allow her to watch tv, we spend some time every now and then on the computer for a short time playing songs but this is very minimal, she listens to music all the time, we are constantly reading books, she has learned to have play time in her crib when she wakes up in the morning, after her nap and before she falls asleep, we don't over schedule her, giving her time just to play sometimes by herself and sometimes with us.
Imagination is truly a wonderful part of growing up and I encourage you to allow your children to develop their imagination. There will be lasting benefits as they grow up and become adults.
I wonder how my daughter will use her imagination to cope with a new sibling that will be coming in a few months. Time shall tell!
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