Trying to develop your kid’s imagination?
Your child’s first few years are extremely crucial. Everything that you do hand-in-hand with your little one right from walking, singing, reading to eating will help his/her brain to jump-start. To involve your little one in stimulating activities and develop your kid’s imagination will help in creating a connection in their brain. These connections through repetition will build in the brain the networks which will enable your child in thinking and learning.
It’s Everything About Imagination
Any child that has a good imagination will be more alert and happier, can cope up with the twists and turns of life better, and above all will help them to grow up into an adult who is secure and well-adjusted. Imagination is everything and is more vital than knowledge and is a doorway to endless possibilities. This is where thinking out of the box, ingenuity and creativity begin for the development of the child. Creative and imaginative play is how kids learn and know about the world.
Children during imaginative play manipulate materials, both through non-verbally and verbally express themselves, intentionally or unintentionally plan, act, react, interact and try various roles. In fact, excellent learning opportunities are possible when kids take part in creative play with boxes, cardboard, rocks, blocks, vehicles, or dolls. Pretending to fly, splashing in puddles, playing with art materials, making recipes by mixing water and dirt, and employing creative thinking at the time of manipulating play dough can further the development of the child. These things help nurture your kid’s imagination thereby making his/her mind more intellectually stimulating.
Ways to Encourage or Nurture Your Child’s Creativity and Imagination
There are numerous ways in which you can encourage or nurture your kid’s imagination and creativity. Take a look at some of these:
Spend Time Outdoors
When your child is under the lap of nature its benefits for their development will be endless. Nature, as we all know, is ever-changing. This will offer an array of opportunities for problem-solving, creativity, and discovery. Children will be inspired by the natural world to question, think, develop creative minds and make suppositions. Your child may draw in the sand, create forts with branches, create designs with twigs or lie on the grass and stare at the sky. Studies have shown that kids who play outside are happier, smarter, more attentive, and less anxious than kids who are glued to their sofas indoors. Spending time outside can allow kids to interact meaningfully with their surroundings. This will help them in thinking more freely, make up their own activities and approach the world in a more inventive manner thereby leading to more imaginative play on their part.
Verbal Activities
Verbal activities play an important role when it comes to your kid’s imagination. Right from phonics, silly sounds, riddles to rhymes, making lyrics to the common tunes or games like “I Spy”, different forms of verbal interactive activities will inspire as well as nurture your child’s creative mind. These imagination activities for kids and preschoolers simultaneously will build vocabulary thereby helping your child to learn phonics. Such games are fun and ideal means of spending time on car rides.
Invent Scenarios
The moment your kid invents a scenario, she/he will try on multiple roles and organize the thoughts while developing verbal and social skills. Enhance your kid’s imagination and encourage your kid to play house, store, school, space station, farm, zoo, or doctor. Become a part of their imaginative role-play for kids by playing a role yourself. Also, play with puppets or stuffed toys. Allow your child to lead this playtime together.
Encourage Art Activities
As we all know, art is a creative expression that nurtures imagination and not a lesson through the following directions. In fact, creative form of child development through the medium of drawing, clay, collage, sculpture, painting, or other mediums can bring about their creative and artistic capabilities. Art is indeed a means for kids in working through emotions, making decisions, and expressing their ideas. The truth is, manipulating art materials offer that sense of freedom but also at the same time encourages concentration and focus. Besides art activities will also help in developing fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination. Art activities furthermore will build confidence as kids will gain that sense of mastery when it comes to materials developing into a new creation.
Dance and Music Fuels Imagination
There is nothing that can spark a kid’s imagination like that of creative arts particularly dance and music. Let your child explore the rhythms both of movement and music to fuel their imagination. Buy some small musical instruments for your child such as drums or arrange for an empty container such as an empty tin. They may not be capable of playing it perfectly yet musical instruments can help to stimulate their mind and also fire up their creativity.
Share Literacy Activities
Reading is an important tool when it comes to your kid’s imagination. The books they read and the characters they get to know form a bond in your child’s life. Try to make the reading time as memorable as possible. Make your kid realize that books are a great source of information and knowledge and having good reading skills is important for their lives. Stories help your kid’s imagination by introducing him/her to a vast new world. It opens up his imagination and ideas that there are other planets, different points in time, and invented characters. Stories enable kids to realize that they have the liberty to imagine anything they want without any restrictions. Discuss other endings or possible scenarios by using your kid’s imagination. Create stories with them often making him/her the key character and at other times create moral dilemmas. It is best to take turns to make a story that continues.
Limit Screen Time
In today’s gadget-savvy world screen time has become a necessary evil. Due to the increasing use of technology, every one of us including our kids is drifting away from the real world. Screen time includes everything right from video games, handhelds, smartphones, tablets, computers, movies, television, and more. Parenting and encouraging imagination especially in the current digital era can be tough. To focus on a screen indeed is a passive means of learning for kids.
We as parents realize the dangers of excessive screen time for our kids. Too much screen time affects our kid’s imagination which diminishes their ability to build creative thinking skills which are vital to self-discovery. Let your kid develop inventiveness. This can only happen when you allow them to free themselves from the shackles of digital domination. Let their young minds be curious and free to explore. Here an alternative will be in encouraging your kids in creating something new and unique. When you engage your child in a kinesthetic way using their five senses and entire bodies it will help to open up their mind surely.
Ask Questions That Are Thought-Provoking and Open-Ended
Asking questions that can provoke creative and imaginative thinking will be an effective means of inviting your kid in expressing their ideas and sharing their visions. This at the same time will give them the message that their ideas are important.
Listening to your kid and encouraging them is vital. Play with your little one, plan activities together but most importantly do not correct too quickly. Passing judgmental comments, making unflattering comparisons, or mocking your child can hinder his growth process along with his imagination. Shaming and embarrassing will simply stifle your kid’s imagination.
Rather encourage exploration with motivating comments like “What a wonderful idea”. There are a couple of reasons why as parents you must be nurturing and celebrating your child’s imagination. In fact, you will be proud to learn that your kid will grow up being a problem solver. He/she will be more self-confident, become strong communicators and above all will make him/her fearless, adventurous, and creative. Be it playing pretend or make-believe can help your little one work through worries, doubts, and fears about real-life situations. He/she can then handle such fears and learn ways of tackling the same using their imagination!!!!!
These were some of the ideas to encourage your kid’s imagination. If you have more ideas under your sleeve, then share them with us in the comments below. Let us learn more from you so that we along with others can benefit from it.
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