A Child's Imagination Is Strengthened Through the Use of Their Parents

Children have the best imaginations. They see something in everything. You see a field of grass, they see a sea full of serpents and a legion of tiny grass people.

Every child has the capability to dream up the greatest and worst things. You can only begin to imagine what they will come up with. Funny how that is as you were once a child yourself with a vast surplus of dreams and imagination of your own. You try to think of some of the things you used to come up with and you can't quite do it. It seems to be enshrouded in a mist.

So you envy the child that can see a society in a shadow and whole galaxies on the top of a dandelion seed drifting in the air trying to find the next destination to spread new galaxies. Each and every child can give you a new insight to the happenings on in our planet. They are convinced as to what they believe to be the utmost and total truth. There is a full fledged fish gill panda bear in the depths of the swimming pool laying in wait for unsuspecting toes that might just dip down into the pool.

As every child pours forth their imagination spreading their own very real reality to the world their thoughts end up with an adult.

That adult can do either of 2 things. They can acknowledge the belief of their child, even encourage and help elaborate and strengthen their imagination by introducing their own insight. Or They can scoff or ignore the child's vision thus weakening their ability to strengthen the reality around them.

Even a child's nightmares could not equal to the devastation of the non believing adult.

Every child looks up to adults. Who else would they look up to except the people who have been through it before? You have the power to change the child's world. You can expand their horizon or you can convince them the world is flat and unflattering.

A child could come to you and announce that the fleet of gnome warriors have infiltrated the back yard and are ready for negotiations of peace and a hospitable peanut butter and jelly lunch. You can shrug and say that's nice and then carry on with your day as nothing is different. Meanwhile your child has decided that the negotiations have broken down and the gnomes have decided to ransack the puppy country and darkness has fallen upon their world as they enter into a thousand years of death. You may think this is silly but you just wait until they are older and have a mind set that to get something done you need to do it alone, nor do they need to help anyone else if they need help, their problems are not as important.

Adults have imagination. Just not as much as a child's. We are out of practice so it is easy to just shrug off a child's rant of what we believe to be fiction. You need to remember that to the child it is Very real.

As an artist I have been able to keep hold of a good chunk of my imagination. I don't have all of it. I sorely miss it. I miss believing in everything. I want to say I still do, that anything is still possible, but deep down I don't believe it anymore. I am trying to bring it out again though.

I try very hard to encourage the dreams of my nieces and the distant imagination of my own mind and I hope the future imagination of my newborn child.

In my field of art I like to sculpt. I also like to write and create my own worlds of reality. I have created a garden that holds its own reality. A dragon swims through the mulch on one side while on the other side is a gnome house by a stone mushroom garden. I am ready with my imagination as any child who will go near it, or any adult, will hopefully be full of wonder and hope. I will tell them the story of the serpent and the dragon which will explain why they are not over by the gnome house. The flowers themselves will have their own tale to tell as they have come far to be where they are now. If you follow the path I created through the garden it will cross a bridge and end in the middle of the woods. This is where they will explain to me why this is.

You will be surprised to find that as you help to encourage your child's imagination and use your own to do so that you both will find that your reality has become a little more fluid and your imagination greatly strengthened with your abilities heightened to see the world and all that it entails in a new brighter light. Your lives will be more fulfilled and it will be easier to find the greatness in life, especially when you can just imagine yourself there.