Friday 12 February 2016

Indulgence or Supporting Imagination and creativity?

I want to pose a question to anyone that happens to read this post.

How far do you go to support your child's imagination?

My youngest is 7 and has always been very imaginative and creative. We have had our share of imaginary friends and worlds and I have always played along while also checking her grasp and concept of reality, you know just to make sure things aren't getting a but mixed up along the seams.

I have put dinner our for dolls, had conversations with them joined in the games and generally revelled in this wonderful little creative spirit that she is.

But she's 7 now and I see many of her peers at school not playing in the same way or perhaps not being indulged or supported by their parents in the same way and I wonder if the time has come to be not so indulgent of her imagination.

The reason that I'm putting this out there today is that today is her beloved cabbage patch dolls birthday ( they come with a birth certificate for anyone that doesn't know)and not only did we buy her a present, we've made her a cake! now perhaps my daughter just fancies a nice cake and has figured out that this is one way to get one but is this indulging her imagination too much?

should I be putting a stop to it? in a gentle way of course or will it just play its course and she will outgrow it? 

Some of her friends just seem so grown up compared to her but is that to do with society and different parenting styles? and why would I want her to grow up quickly? not that I want to keep her a baby but I don't want to hold her back either.

so thoughts please?


Where did last year go?

Last year feels like it went by in blur of work, life, children, grandchildren and everything else in between!

I say this because I realised that its been a while since not only have I written a post but it's been the same length of time since I read one and what I thought was probably about 8 months has turned out to be more like 18 months since my last post!

How did this happen? how did I get so caught up in things that this amount of time has passed without me realising?

I have often had thoughts (often late at night) cross my mind and I've thought I will write something about that but then morning and again life takes over and here we are 18 months down the line and this is the first thing I'm writing.

So no promises just attempts to share something, anything that I feel like I want to share with world or at least get out of my head.