Finding You and Staying True

In our house we spend "special time" with our children. From time to time they ask "can I have a special time with you?" and that is the language we use for "I need you to listen to me and make me feel special". 

This week my eight year old Sprout was getting ready for bed when she asked "can I have a special time with you, mom?" 

"I'm becoming a completely different person" she told me with wide, sad eyes. "I am almost a completely different person than the person I was in Australia. None of my friends here like to pretend or use their imaginations."

I jumped on her bed and cuddled her close and started a story with her. We took turns telling chapters about a Rainbow girl in a rainbow kingdom where everything was amazing colors. That's the thing about my girl and I, we can flip on creative like a switch, and we're off and away. It's something we share, and something that's special between us.

Sprout's best friend in Australia was so imaginative, she lived half in a story, and half in reality. Together the two girls kept a fanciful world going, nearly all the time. Sprout, being an absolutely honest child, was incredibly hurt on a few occasions when she completely believed her best friend's stories, only to find that they weren't true! I loved her friend's imagination, and all the places they went together, in their playful dreaming.

Sprout has made friends here. She is well liked, and doesn't lack playmates. She even has some good friends that she really enjoys spending time with. There isn't, however, a friend who resonates with creativity, and imagination. Being a creative being myself, I feel my wonder slipping away as I age. Perhaps it is the gradual loss of my own dreaming that made my heart hurt for my daughter.

This space that we live in here doesn't value her imagination. Her school does not nurture her creativity. It does not resonate with her friends.

I hope she doesn't lose it. I hope I don't lose it. It is a valuable part of who we are, and something I love about myself and feel I am missing. I love seeing her lost in a world of her own creation, almost oblivious that anyone else is near.

Are you a creative person, or parenting a creative child? How do you make a space for whimsy?

Comments

[Erika]

O is a creative child. It amazes me how she can find anything, and turn it into something I would never have imagined. My house has been littered with toilet paper roll people, totems, animals... Or she will grab a piece of paper and turn it into a hat, or mask. Her imagination is bottomless. Her room is constantly in disarray, and I have read that creative people live this way. So I turn a blind eye until it is utterly out of control ;)

[Cindy]

Definitely creative sorts. I love listening to the imaginative play here... always making cubby houses, creating puppet shows, upcylcing cardboard boxes and tube, etc. I made these stones earlier in the year and we tell stories using these http://bit.ly/1w6t4sd. Will B write down some of her stories?