Blogger:Etta Wilson
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Weather: 45 and sunny
I’m back at the seminary where my husband and I started our marriage. Serendipitously, we were given a room in the same building where we lived the first two years in our life together. This time we are participating in a conference entitled “What Is Imagination?”
Among other things that stir my brain, I am impressed by the way imagination and creativity can energize us. (“A ten-hour day is more likely to fill you than to drain you when you have a passion for the work,” said one textile artist.) Ah-ha, there’s another meaning to “resting” other than simply the cessation of activity. It’s reinvigorating. Some kinds of work energize our minds and spirits at least until our bodies demand attention.
But I was most interested in what I gleaned from the conference on the development of our styles of work and rest during childhood. Paul Harris, a professor of children’s psychology at Harvard, presented some interesting research, pointing out that around age 5 children adopt the language of Testimony or the language that leads to knowledge of things and people not present to the senses. They easily adopt language and beliefs about God, and by the age of 6, their belief in prayer begins to escalate rapidly.
Some of the questions this raised for me, and perhaps for you if you write for children, are:
What words do we want very young children to know?
How do we best encourage prayer among those six-year-olds?
What kind of fiction do we create for middle-graders who are growing up in a world we could hardly have imagined a few years ago?
No, I haven’t taken off on a totally unrelated point, though it may be tangential. This conference and the questions it raised made me think about the way children can energize us if we are absent from their world too long. Talking with them, answering their questions (“Who made God?”), laughing at their riddles, setting limits for them–all this can be really enriching if we don’t have too much of it day after day. If they know when bedtime comes, it’s time for sleep. And maybe for us as well–right after we jot down some notes on what we’ve learned from those who are from the Kingdom of Heaven.
“What kind of fiction do we create for middle-graders who are growing up in a world we could hardly have imagined a few years ago?”
Reading fiction has always been my escape. To me, challenges for today’s kids are basically the same as challenges for kids who lived in the 1800’s–their security and safety are threatened. The source of the threat doesn’t matter. All kids long to be safe, secure, and loved. Firing their imaginations, giving kids a glimpse beyond today’s pain–that’s an honorable profession.
My then three-year-old was outside one day, just swinging away and watching the clouds, the dog trampling through the bushes nearby. From my guilty vantage point at the window, I thought, “He’s lonely. I should go outside and play with him!”
But then a little voice slipped into my brain: “Wait. He’s got his whole life to fill with people and events. Let him spend time outside with his imagination. That’s what he needs now.”
I filled my children’s lives with books and events, but also with down times to think and dream. All four like nothing better than to curl up with a book and disappear into a different place–possibly because they had plenty of time to practice when they were young. 🙂
My mother taught me well about rest. Every night, like clockwork, I was sent to bed at the same time. But she also taught me I could play or rest after I finished my work. Uh, I guess she didn’t realize I would have a job in which my work never gets done.
Spot on with the idea of connecting with kids. I teach 11-16 y.o. at a home school educational cooperative. It’s been a blast for me to keep off balance with their comments and to startle them with a few of my own. They are delighted with unvarnished statements, adults who like to play, and most still think they can save the world. Who am I to say, knowing they belong to a big God, that they won’t?
It’s a great week to be discussing children and reading. I’ve just seen ALA’s 2009 Newbery and Caldecott awards which were announced a few days ago. Tomorrow I’m heading out to find “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman (Newbery) and “The House in the Night” by Susan Swanson (Caldecott). Stay tuned! Etta
You can listen to Neil Gaiman read “The Graveyard” in its entirety on his website here: http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx
Even if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, it’s worth listening to a bit to hear what an amazing reader he is.
There, I finally had something useful to offer after all this time in lurkdom. This has become one of my favorite blogs. I’m always amazed at how the thoughts and questions here are the very ones I had on my mind before clicking the link. Thank you!
I hope everyone will pardon me for using a screen name. My real name happens to be the same as the nom de plume of published author with a pile of steamy romances to her credit. I don’t think it wise to post here using my real name for your sakes and hers.
“What words do we want very young children to know?”
This is a very powerful question. The words we hear and learn in our earliest years are the ones that shape us in deep and mysterious ways, that stay with us for life. The words we hear spoken to us again and again seem to be the ones that stick, whether from Church or beloved stories read over and over, or phrases our parents and grandparents repeated to us.
One of my mother’s oft-repeated phrases that sticks with me: “only savages go without socks.”