|
Lets Pretend!!! Watch your "Thoughts”, they become words; -- Frank Outlaw As I am writing this, I am lying outside in the garden watching Tyla (my 14-month old daughter) playing in a giant plastic clam shell, surrounded by beach toys (with no beach or beach sand in sight!) and I realise that it's just not as fun as the real thing for me, but it does not seem to make any difference to Tyla. She doesn't have a beach memory to compare to her empty sandpit and is as happy as a pig in the mud, exploring her surroundings and beach toys... Tyla is using the toys as drums, teething rings, pretend telephones and the like - not as they were meant to be used for. The toys have now been given new uses - buckets and spades as a drum kit, blocks and pipes as teething rings, a rake as a hair brush - and she is oblivious of their intended use. I realise too, as I watch Tyla use a sand sifter as a telephone that so many things that "big people" do are watched and heard by little eyes and ears and are then imitated and interpreted. We seem to carry on this trait into our childhood and into adulthood. At school, we imitate our friends and teachers, trying out new accents and sayings, getting our parents to buy the same toys as our friends have and wearing clothes that "magazines" say are "hip and cool and in fashion". Most of the words said by young 'uns are what are taught and heard, but then they hear words that are different, not knowing that some of these words are "swear words" or "bad" words, they are just accepted as new words to use until we teach them otherwise. We are also taught or shown how to act, to speak, to write, what is right and what is wrong (hopefully!) so we carry on copying and imitating our teachers. (be it at school or home). We read novels (fiction and non-fiction) and watch movies, and try and live our lives like the characters in the story, taking on their ways, hopes and dreams (how to marry a prince?) We try to dress like movie stars (even when the styles don't suit our bodies) and keep "up with the Jones's" (though it might be out of our financial reach!). We 'believe' that the way our family and other people treat us is the way things are, never realising that some people "love with their fists" or only talk with anger. We pretend our feelings don't matter, that unkind words don't hurt. We strive to be slimmer, better people, and richer - never really looking inside ourselves to see the person within, the real person. I see now that I must try and teach my kids about right and wrong, but more importantly I need to give them the tools to have the strength and courage to trust and believe in themselves and their own unique abilities, and not follow like sheep and be what other people decide or think that they should be! Bevskins PS. For more articles written by Bevskins [ Read More ] |