Raise your Kid's Imagination, See the Creative Juices flow

Imagine you are getting out of a mall. You are inside a car and suddenly the car takes off and you are out in the air. What would happen? Now narrate this imaginary occurrence to your child and see what happens. You will witness some amazing stories coming out from their little mouth, spreading its wings and flying seamless in all directions. That is how imagination in children is.

 I remember when I nonchalantly asked my child why her teacher is absent since few days and her reply was that the teacher is not well and she has cough. The next day, she mentioned that she has gone to her cousins wedding. Now that comes from a book that she had read around the same time. She just connected two events thoughtlessly and framed a narrative. How interesting! Also. the conviction in her reply amazed me.

Kids enter into this world with a thought engine that produces so many different stories. More you ask questions and encourage them to ask, greater speed the thought engine revvs up, never screeching to a hard halt.

Kids have a vivid imagination right from their birth and it is on us to give them a platform and be the wings beneath their imagination. To push and make it shine.  Some kids exhibit this amazing quality naturally. It just bubbles up and pours like a lava falling down the side of their mind volcano. For some, it stays dormant deep in a corner, waiting to wake up. We, as parents, can exercise few ideas to wake that dormant imagination and make it fly high.

Follow these 9 ideas and I am sure these  would open the door of their imagination. These are tried and true methods which I have personally exercised with my child  which I am sure would guarantee an aggregable result.

1.      Spin a yarn through flash cards : if you have a phoenix card set, spread the cards. Draw out 3 to 4 cards at a time and try making stories with them. The story should include the pictures illustrated on those 4 cards. Once you finish your story, draw out 4 more and continue until you finish up drawing all the cards. If you do not have the card set, do not worry.

Take a pencil and draw any 4 images of your choice and play this game. For smaller kids, you can try making simple sentences out of the drawn picture cards. Try framing them in a way that you link those sentences to make up a story. If you don’t have any picture cards or you don’t feel like drawing, you can call out or ask your kids to choose any object/objects from your house and do this story making activity. Once they get the drift, you can go one more level up and draw a character and a setting (place) and get them brew up a story.

2.      Look out and tell what you see: This is my favorite activity with my kid. Stand in your balcony or near your window with your child. Gaze out the window and start the conversation. Tell what you see outside. Example, a tall towering building structure, people running about here and there, a tree, few cars or rickshaws, flight of birds etc. Take turns and speak what you see out there. Add on few details. “I see a man dressed in white shirt and blue pants. I see a tall building and there are so many floors in it. There is also a girl playing in the building garden. There are so many trees and birds. The sky looks lovely and it is painted in pink and white.

Throw in some adjectives. Remember more you describe, more descriptive they become. Also adjective words are the first step towards descriptive writing.

You can go one step further and ask your child, “ What do you think the people in the building must be doing? Take turns and play it like a game. In 3^rd floor, I think people must be watching TV. In 12^th floor, children are doing some home assignment and mother is cooking some hot meal etc”.  Kids are smart and they are ready with beautiful answers and you will be pleasantly astounded enough to know how their imagination just takes off.

3.      Show it with the lines and curves:

Drawing is the best way to put the imagination on paper. What your mind has is described on paper. The open canvas awaits for your child’s imagination. Ask you child to draw whatever they want. Don’t give them any cues.

 Let them bring their imagination and more often, they surprise us with their amazing sense of interpretation of things around them. They will collectively bring them in their drawing or go little bit more in detail to show what the character or an animal or any object is doing or representing.

4.      Always start with the cover:

Books are perfect to build the imagination but if you have just begun this journey, then go slow. For more younger kids, show them the cover page and talk more on the cover page. Ask them what he or she is doing. What their names could be. What does the picture say and etc. Give them a floor to bring their thoughts and this conversation could spark up the interest in reading too.

5.      Reference to books

Leading to the previous point, books play a pivotal role for a reader to imagine a world beyond reality. While that is true, you can take one step ahead by including the book reference in your day to day conversation.

When we were reading Good night moon, a classic, I often bring that book into fore in our conversation or for that matter, A room on the broom by Julia Donaldson also used to appear frequently. Also ask your child what he or she thinks about the characters or which character they would want to be. When you are talking about books, ask more questions on characters, settings, theme or events. This will not only make them book literate but will help see the depth of the each and every detail of the story.

6.      How was your day?

Dinner table conversations could act as a catalyst towards building imagination. Talk about what happened in their school, talk about their friends, teachers and various other happenings. But don’t stop there. Every day ask them what did they imagine that day, what kind of imagination appear on their mind.

This will tell them that you value their imagination and it is okay to think beyond the reality and break free the pre-conceived theories and notions, atleast for some part of the day.

7.      Make-believe world

For younger children, make believe or pretend play/role play can be the best imagination building exercise. Indulge in those activities and encourage them to come up with such kind of activities. For example, a child can pretend like a character in a book or any person of real life.

8.      Spin with Sa-re-ga-ma

Music can also trigger imagination. We can make use of music to spark an imagination. Ask your child to close the eyes. Then play any music. Ask what they feel listening to that song. Ask what fragrance can they imagine.

What setting they think when they hear that song etc. When they start answering, you can lead them on to develop further and weave a complete yarn out of this small activity.

9.      Salad stories

If you think food is mainly to fill your stomach, you are wrong. Food can add value in imagination too. All you need to do is get the help of the veggies sitting nicely in your refrigerator. Get them one by one and sit with your child. Cut, dice or slice them artistically. For example, you can take coconut if your story has snow in it or you can take capsicum, greens if there are trees in your story. Once the warm up has happened, ask them to spin a story using those nicely chopped salad veggies. Lot of stories happen through this method and once the activity is done, you can ask your child to finish it up or you can use it up for your meals.

Imagination is the first step in creative storytelling or creative writing. Lets give them a floor to improve and stimulate their imagination and you will see how the imagery finds a way to come through.

So, try the above-mentioned imagination hacks and write to me if you see any positive change in your child.

Also, if you have any interesting activities that you carry out with your child in order to raise their imagination power, I would like to know.

Anna Karenina and What Modern Age Brings for Women

Pestsov promptly started a new conversation: “The education of women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful. Women is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognize the gulf that seperates them from us”

Sergey Ivanovitch put in his word without waiting, “You mean rights, meaning the right of sitting on juries and voting. But if women occupy such positions, one can only sympathize with this desire to assist in the general labor of man”

Alexey Alexandrovitch broke in, “The question is whether they are fitted for such duties”

Pestsov said, “Duties are bound up with rights – power, money, honor, those are what women are seeking.”

This scene unfolds at the Stephen Arkadyevitch’s house in a house party hosted by his partner Darya, elder sister of Kitty, one of the protagonists in this classic ‘Anna Karenina. The novel is written by much revered Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The once benumbing chill in the room fades when Arkadyevitch enters the setting and joy surrounds, until the conversation veers into women and their position in a society.

This novel was published in the year 1878. Not much has changed since then and we have seen many Pestsov and Ivanovitches over centuries, pelting stones on the thought of uplifting women and giving them equal and fair rights. I chose to fish out the excerpt from this novel because not only it is a classic but serves as a classic example of what the past generations have thought about women’s role in a society. How upsetting they all have been!

Women and the talk of their rights are often ridiculed or subjected to judgements. It doesn’t matter where the conversation is taking place. Be it in closed confines of one’s room or be it over evening tea, or be it in the board room, the rights of women did not come in the priorities of mankind. And even today, this grim reality reverberates in the corridors of society and echoes the extreme disparity in women’s rights.

But this modern era, though it is folded with murky layers and shadows of unkept promises to liberate women and give them equal rights to put in their feet in the areas where only men’s existence played dominant, sees some change of air in the mindsets of people. The social fabric gets a makeover and some of the arenas welcome women in par with men. 

Historically, the female gender has been concentrated in certain jobs but due to the changing times, they are seen engaging themselves in many roles like combat and defence roles, manufacturing, technology, politics, research, media and many others, thereby offering them a road to build their identity. The rights are revised now approving women to enter in such fields and not be judged on their gender but only on their capability and individual merit.

So, lets read about how changing mindsets have regarded women and have broken the barrier which paved the way to familial and professional relationships to see a huge leap in understanding and growth.

Now it is year 2020 and though there are gravels and stones in the path of women, few aspects that I write below will give you a drift on how far we have come from Karenina times and how thankful we should be for this phase.

Equality in the battlefront

As I said, women have entered into the roles that welcomed and designed only for men since time immemorial. For example, Army and defence. We will see more parity over patriarchy here in this field as the Supreme Court has chalked out a rule which says women Army officers will serve as equals and are eligible for command posts and permanent commissions. The battlefront will see more women in the forefront which is a welcome change.

Change in household dynamics

The household dynamics have changed with more and more men participating in household chores. The patriarchal society that we lived in the past will take time to fade off from the present but society has now warmed up to the new idea of men chipping in and giving their hand in helping women in the household chores.

There are also men who call themselves as stay at home working dads. With more and more women stepping into workforce and returning to their career, it becomes difficult to gain a complete balance with house chores, kids and professional demands. So, some men take a backseat and support their spouses leading them to go out and attain their professional goals while them acting as hands on dad and balancing their own career by staying at home. This phenomenon is still in a nascent stage but many metropolitan cities have embraced this idea.

 Also, migration has played a big role in people moving out of their large, joint families and setting up their own independent house in an apartment. More and more families are signing off from the age-old custom of living in a joint family setup towards a nuclear set up. This is also one more reason for men of this generation to support women at home.

Platforms for flexible options for women

Many women want to resume their jobs and build their professional life again. Having their foot at the right place is very important when they set to restart their career. Many platforms come to their rescue and make it easier for those women who is looking for a head start. They not only give them jobs but also give them flexible options like working from home, putting few hours for their professional demands, and give women a choice to choose the role they want to engage themselves in.

Web series and cinema focusing more on women

Cinema helps one broaden their views by mirroring the realities. The fraternity of cinema not only devote their life for a moment of entertainment but also offer us a vivid picture of sensitive issues encircling the societal conflicts, issues based on women and children and much more. Also, the web series has been extremely vocal in expressing the realities that centers women. Both web series and cinema are resolute in its approach when it comes to women and the issues faced by them, making the society witness the oppression and discontent and taking steps to curtail the same.

As we step into 2020, we see many women come this far by challenging stereotypes, fighting biases, broadening their perspectives on themselves and the world around them, still there are some portion of women left to embrace the gender-equal world and some are in dire need to see the gender-equal world. The latter will see when the society will improve the mindsets collectively and bruise and rupture that part of society which still doesn’t shy away from contriving and suffocating women with their fragile egos and flawed notions.

If German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht quotes, “In the dark times will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times”, I would like to add few more lines to it and end it in a hopeful note.

“There will be singing about the dark times, there will also be expressing the dark times through art and music, and as we express, there is hope. Let’s soak in the hope that the dark times will be erased from the history of women.”