My age is really beginning to show. I remember days before Christmas we would often times pretend how we were going to be on Christmas Day once we opened our gifts. How we would act excited if we saw a gift we weren't supposed to see before Christmas. How if Santa was real we would pretend we were sleep so he wouldn't put coal in our eyes.
We knew the lists we had given to Santa. We used to exchange stories as to how Santa would get in the house to deliver our gifts and place them under the Christmas tree since we lived in a two-story home with no chimney.
The excitement, expectation, and joy with the thought of things to come would make the festivities more exciting. We would verbally exchange our wish lists freely with our friends and family.
I'm not being bah hum bug but a conversation I had with a child I was reading to as an act of kindness earlier today made me stop and wonder were did all the excitement go? It made me come to the conclusion that children don't take the time to pretend anymore.
She was being tasked to read a book. I told her to make reading more exciting by bringing the book to life. Read with excitement and imagine or pretend she was reading to a classroom full of students with her being the teacher.
Well, I ended up reading the book to her. Thankfully, it was a Dora The Explorer book written in the pattern of familiar nursery rhymes.
I shared with her to spark her interest in reading, if she seeks out books along her interests it will appeal to her more. I went on to share with her my oldest daughter used to like rap artists so I purchased her magazines with her favorite artists and she pasted their posters all over her room walls. She kept up to date on all the hip hop news. The underlying blessing was that the more magazines she received the more she read. Oh she can tell you the history of a lot of music artists. Who they married. How many times they were married. How they got their start. It created dialogue.
My son, well he loved cartoons. He would be the first one up every Saturday morning to watch cartoons. Thus, I would buy him comic books. He really liked the super heroes. He couldn't wait to read the latest comic books and share the stories of the super heroes with me. National Geographic was his favorite television program. Often when I walked past his room if he wasn't playing a video game he was watching National Geographic. In fact, he watched it to the point to where it was nauseating. Thus, I bought him National Geographic magazines. Years later I could tell what interested him most was the scientific aspect of what was happening on the show and what was being read in the books.
My youngest daughter was more eccentric. She liked reading materials from medieval times. Those where the types of shows and cartoons she enjoyed watching as well. But it made her a literary genius. The child scored in the top 2% on national literary tests. She ended up receiving a mad number of scholarship offers even though she didn't take any. She receive monetary scholarships for her trade, interior decorating. She would always tell us she was going to Paris France for college to be a fashion designer. She lived in readings.
Where In Time Is Carmen San Diego was the computer software that made them leave the t.v.'s, games, and computers in their own room to congregate and compete against each other at the computer in the kitchen. They used to joke me that there was a computer in every room other than the bathroom. It required them to at least read the screen. A lot of times on a whim they would get on a computer because it was there. I had the computers loaded with academically inclined games and software to spark their imagination and promoted creativity.
Children need something to believe in. As parents, it is our duty to support the interest of our children as much as possible. Something things are easy. It may just take a little pretend on our parts to help our children realize their dreams and opportunities. Of course, we can lead a horse to water and we can't make them drink. Wasted potential is a casualty of many situations.
I was just thinking today, wouldn't it be nice to be able to have some type of technology or stat report to look at to see how much of what I would always express to my children hit the walls or if they actually internalized it. My guess would be a lot of mothers would love to see that solved right in line with the common cold.
I remember many days when my grandmother would tell me I'm not talking to the walls I'm talking to you. She would always accuse me of daydreaming. Then I would start dreaming (if I wasn't already) to be grown living my own fabulous life. Pretending got me through a lot of nagging sessions with the foresight that one day I would be grown and on my own.
My other acts of kindness will probably include my taking her with me to show her reading has a purpose in life. I'll let her write all the sticky notes. I wonder does she like to write? It'll probably be too much like work as well.
Oh well, happy holidays. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Be kind, even if it is play-play. Now if you know the terminology "play-play" you're probably just as old as me. lol
