Imagination April 26, 2020 – Posted in: Blog

Mums and Dads, Puppies, Scary Monsters or tending to Teddy’s sore leg…As parents we know we should encourage our child’s imagination but busy lives can mean we often forget the benefit for imagination as time for creativity is over run by the need for productivity.

Reading books helps to stimulate your child’s imagination and develop their sense of fun.  Without even realising it children’s pretend play can build self control, social skills and language development which television and video games may lack. Imaginative play requires children to invent their own stories; turning their ideas into words while self teaching vocabulary and grammar.

For instance a little girl may imagine herself as Alice in bed in hospital, her brother could be the Doctor or they might imagine themselves helping Smelly Melly Monster.  No matter the story their imagination can take it so much further.

From almost the day a child is born they begin to grow in self confidence and self esteem by mastering new skills through imaginative play. It’s important to fuel this fire and encourage that sense of achievement, it could be a small step to us as adults but that boost can give a child great pleasure and a sense of self satisfaction. Of course the enthusiasm for imaginative play comes from pleasure instead of the search for a boost of self confidence but the two go hand in hand. The more a child plays and reads, the more they become confident to challenge themselves with more difficult toys and exploration activities.

As adults we are constantly being warned how quickly kids pick up on our actions – the same goes with our words as we often hear children repeating words and phrases from adult conversation and from books and stories. When a child role plays they are coincidentally learning to experiment and understand the power of language. 

With an overall push towards a market of technology, educational DVDs, television and other structured learning environments children are beginning to lose their natural ability for creativity at their own pace. Of course it’s the end goal for large corporations to influence parents to follow media and marketing trends and we can unconsciously be pushed towards products and ways of learning which may not be the way a child would have naturally been drawn to.

However reading provides so much more and can stimulate other areas of creativity that technology cannot, as yet, provide.  Not to mention the bonding that can be built between parent and child from reading a story.  The messages and teachings that stories often tell assist your child to grow and deal with situations that arise in life.  In Smelly Melly they can see name calling and bullying being dealt with, in Ollie they see strength and courage, in Alice they can see how to overcome fear. 

Sometimes when an adult steps back and really watches a child develop through pretend play we can be pleasantly surprised and simply awed at a child’s ability to initiate and understand their surrounding and how to best deal with situations that are put in front of them whether it be conflict with another child, listening to adults, or the learning of sounds and touch of the environment and new objects.  Reading allows you to assist to instill these things in your child. 

Imagination is a wonderful thing and we owe it to our children to continue to open their minds to many stimuli, to keep dreaming because some of our most heralded changes and achievements have been achieved by people with big imaginations.  In our new books being published soon we tackle issues like racism, bullying, isolationism and happiness.  Look forward to hearing from you soon.