The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1931-07-02
Grou)ing With
Your Child
Imagination

Without the gift of Imagination,
the child's world would be meager
and cold. It is one of the biggest
sources of human joy as well as
the spring from which inventive
and creative ability arise.
Strength of imagination in a
child is often related rather close
ly to his happiness and activity;
for the child with quick, keen
sense of the world of fancy has
plenty to do and to think about.
He has within, fund of experience
and observation which he can fall
back upon when another child
might be bored or listless.
lit is sometimes believed that
there is something morbid about
Imagination, and that its appear
ance in a child is to be feared and
repressed. There is, in the child's
inherited behavior nothing that
may be called either good" or
bad" There is no more danger
connected with imagination than
with any other natural mental &C
tivity. Like curiosity, it may, when
poorly directed, lead the child into
harm. If daydreams absorb all the
child's time and make him lose
touch with the real world, then
Imagination may be said to be play
ing too important role.
Imagination has very practical
use for parents-the imaginative
child may be more easily guided
toward acceptable behavior. Many
a parent has made use of the child's
delight in playing soldier in getting
prompt obedience to orders. The
child who has been taught to make
play of putting away his things,
cleaning up after wreck" or
pretending that he is packing to go
on a journey, later on, when asked
to rake the lawn, will pretend that
the grass leaves is an important
crop which he is harvesting and get
a great deal of fun out of the task.
The child who is given every OPP
portunity to test the actual with
the imagined is gaining intellectual
honesty. Suppose the child is
heard to boast, "Oh, can make
boat like thatn Only if he tries it
out, and has a chance to see how
his lack Of experience and skill
hinder him, will he really see how
hard it is to bend materials to his
will and to build the thing that he
imagined.
The child's learning is made more
effective by imagination. Every I'M
folding which the child watched in
nature makes him more apprecia-
tive of the patterns which runs
through life. Every time he dra-
matises the life about him in his
play, he is learning something of it's
reality, even if it is only by imi-
tation. The boy who must eat only
hard-tack because "he is cast on a
desert island" is testing his pa
thence and self-control.
To give children the full benefit
of learning through imagination
they must have a free environ
ment. They do not need perfection
and finish in their surroundings TO
make them happy. Children invest
Will llldSlC l1c AlOSI OIQ1AdIy dno
fish over the banister with string
and go to great pains to land a
block that has no remote resem-
blaze to fish.
Here they are engrossed in the
doing, as when stick is used for
a hobby horse not because it looks
like horse but because they must
ride something. They use in new
ways everything they see or exper
fence, putting together bits that
make a mosaic as fantastic as .
dream but very real to them. They
will tell preposterous stories like
that of the little boy who dropped
his head and went home to tell
his mother in elaborate detail
where it might be found. A little
girl will scold her doll for not eat
ing her dinner, and then calmly
proceed to eat the dinner herself.
Like primitive man, the child
gives to natural objects the same