As a writer and an avid reader, I tend to stop by a lot of blogs on a daily basis. I read everything from fashion/beauty to lifestyle and mommy blogs, to pop culture, music and local blogs.
In general, I love it. The creativity and information that is available is like never before. I also love seeing all the little spaces that people create and how they fill it. The design, the content, the opinions.
But sometimes it can be information overload, especially with parenting blogs.
I try to live in a judgement-free (or at least judgement-limited) zone. That's not to say I agree with everyone, I certainly don't. But, for the most part, I can read something and think, "that's definitely not for me, but if it works for that family, great" and leave it at that.
But it's funny. The more parenting sites I visit and mommy blogs I read, I feel like one thing is really lacking.
The fact that we need to encourage kids to use their imaginations. To let them be bored...and force them to entertain themselves.
When I first had kids and then started taking care of my friend's kids, I tried to do more organized activities. Have more arts and crafts and dedicated time for certain things. I mean, according to all the blogs and websites I visited...and Pinterest...this is what I was supposed to do.
And it started to feel like a chore. The kids weren't having as much fun as I wanted them to have and this was causing me stress. Why weren't the toilet paper roll heart-stamps turning out the same way as I saw on Pinterest? (Does anything turn out the way it's shown on Pinterest?) Why aren't they having fun finger painting? (They might have been a little young for that one.) Why aren't they smiling when I try to take pictures to document this successful craft time? (Because it wasn't a successful craft time.)
When I would give up in frustration and just tell the kids to go play, I started to realize that was when they were happiest. Just playing. Imagining. Having freedom to make up whatever they wanted.
Which caused me to reflect on my childhood. I was lucky enough to spend a large portion of my childhood with my grandma as she watched us after-school and in the summers. Prior to that, I went to an in-home daycare in our neighborhood.
In both situations, my days were not filled with organized activities. Sure we did things for special holidays (both helped us make gifts for our parents around the holidays) but for the most part, we just played.
Sometimes we played together; there were a lot of us. Especially those years at my grandma's. There was me and my sister, the two neighbor girls, and lots of cousins. And sometimes I just played alone.
But with my active imagination I was never alone.
From as far back as I can remember, I always loved reading and writing. I remember writing little news stories for all of us kids and then reading those stories out loud as we pretended to be anchors for the evening news.
I would spend hours perfecting a new game of bouncing the ball off of my grandma's garage and I would pretend I was the star athlete for this new sport. I, of course, went to the Olympics and won the gold medal in said sport.
I also remember standing on a chair in my room, pretending it was a stage and with my trusty microphone in hand, belting out my favorite songs. Typically those by The Jets.
I went through a stage where I decided a fashion designer was what I was destined to be and I started sketching and designing outfits. When the other kids started doing it, too, we put together a book of our designs.
My grandma had a bin of old clothes that we would dress up in and play "house" and "school" and "friends" and any other scenario we could think of to match our costumes.
She also had a huge case of Smurfs. And a ton of "My Little Ponies." And Barbies. Little People. Dolls. Our imaginations didn't stop with us--we would create elaborate adventures for all our toys, too.
We would invent games to play outside or board games for rainy days. We would write stories together. Sometimes we would lounge in front of the fan (because Grandma didn't have air conditioning and the fan was prime real estate on those late summer days) and tell stories.
I could go on and on with all the things we created with our imaginations. I know that I said to my grandma at various times that I was "bored," but instead of finding things for me to do or stopping what she was doing to entertain me, she would, simply, tell me to find something to do. And then she would go back to whatever she was doing and I would be expected to entertain myself.
And I did.
THIS is what I want to pass on to my kids.
Sure I'll organize different activities and crafts periodically. That's fun to do, too. But what I really want, more than anything, is for my kids to work that imagination muscle.
I also can't wait for the first time one of them says they are bored.
Thanks Grandma, for the perfect response.
"Well, then find something to do."
xo Sara
{P.S. If you like the topic of "imagination," here's a post about "Super Elena!" with a quote from Einstein that sums up my feelings on the topic.}