Dear Parents, Encourage Your Kid to Imagine (Just Like You Did)

Our examination system still favours rote and answers come with answer keys – actively discouraging imagination.

Parents should remember that there is absolutely no need to orchestrate every waking second of the child.

Most days I am compelled to wait in my car before I can make a turn into my gate because I have to wait for a house to be dismantled!

The makeshift house constructed by the children of construction workers in the shade of my house always makes me feel nostalgic about my own childhood where we played many an imaginary game.

I vividly remember playing the role of a mother – sometimes a father, while playing ‘house’ or impersonating a shopkeeper selling tea/coffee. I remember writing nonsensical ditties while travelling in a sleeper train, keeping in tune with the sound of the wheels of the train on the track.

Unfortunately, imagination and creativity have never been given as much weightage in our school curriculum as they should have been.(Photo: iStock)

This was far prior to the days when I realised that my voice was not made for singing – either in private or in public! Today, whenever we cousins meet, we carefully school our behaviour and never broach the subject!

Of ‘Playing at’ Secret Seven

I never felt embarrassed if I was caught talking to myself because my peers too were in the same boat. We knew how to keep ourselves entertained in case there was a dearth of company. Boredom was an alien concept.

There were huge lists of our favourite things – right from regaling one another with ‘ghost stories’ to staging plays on terraces and inviting our elders from the colony and starting a club à la Secret Seven (who hasn’t?) with badges and a password.

We even started a club à la Secret Seven (who didn’t?) with badges and a password.(Photo: iStock)

We did attend a few classes to better ourselves at the behest of our parents but neither were they paranoid that every second of our life should be stage managed for our growth nor were we tagging behind them expecting them to keep us entertained.

We grew up and they allowed us to grow.

They expected us to pull our weight keeping in mind the family finances – which meant, we managed to make do with things that we had and make do with things that we could not have.

Dear Parents, Let Your Children ‘Imagine’

According to Psychology Today,

Over the last seventy-five years a number of theorists and researchers have identified the values of such imaginative play as a vital component to the normal development of a child.

Unfortunately, imagination and creativity have never been given as much weightage in our school curriculum as they should have been. Our examination system still favours rote and answers come with answer keys, on the basis of which evaluations are done – actively discouraging imagination.

I remember evaluating a bunch of essays where the students had been asked to write on the prompter, “If I were stuck on an uninhabited island after a ship wreck….” Most of the students were unable to move beyond the point of “...I would whip out my mobile phone and call for help”!

On a familial level, perhaps there are things we could do for our children.

A story can be narrated at the dining table, with the parent holding back the ending and asking each child to come up with one.(Photo: iStock)

After watching a movie, why not encourage a lively discussion on the best scene and the worst and how it could have been made better? The same could be done for a book too. A story can be narrated at the dining table, with the parent holding back the ending and ask each child to come up with one. Board games can be revived too, to enable children to be weaned away from obsessive computer use.

Parents should remember that there is absolutely no need to orchestrate every waking second of the child. There is nothing wrong with wanting to simply ‘stand and stare.’

(Chandrika R Krishnan is a freelance writer and a freelance Behavioural Skills Facilitator with more than 130 articles and short stories to her credit. She also conducts a story telling and reading club for underprivileged children. For more of her articles visit https://chandrikarkrishnan.wordpress.com/)