Having a strong imagination is important for your child’s development. Young children will use their imagination to play, developing different skills and traits along the way. As children get older, imagination comes into play in a variety of different ways. From writing reports for school and providing fresh and innovative ideas at work, a good imagination will help your children grow, develop and succeed right through to their adult years.
As parents, it’s important that we take the time to encourage our children to use their imaginations, whether that means engaging in creative play, reading fairy tales or just getting creative with art projects, it’s our duty to encourage their efforts.
How to Encourage Your Child’s Imagination
Take Away the Toys
If you want to encourage your child to use their imagination, don’t be afraid to take away their toys. Have your child set aside their favourite toy or electronic for a little while and see if they’ll try something new instead. Let your child know that this isn’t a punishment and they aren’t grounded from the toy, but that you want to see how they can play on their own.
Tell Silly Tales
In order to encourage your child’s imagination, try telling silly tales. Ask your child, “If you could take a ship anywhere, where would you go?” Once your child tells you where they would go, take turns adding to the story. You can add in details about what you’d do there or who you would meet. You might even “discover” a new species of animals on your imaginative trip. The more you do this, the more encouraged your child will be to use their imagination to add something new and exciting to the story.
Build Worlds
Building a whole new world in your living room is a great way to encourage your child’s imagination. To do this, you can use couch cushions, sheets, and any other materials you have on hand to build a treehouse in the rainforest or an observatory under the ocean. Once you’ve entered this new world, you and your child can come up with different rules that govern the rule. For example, in your child’s new world, pigs might really be able to fly!
Invite Friends Over
A great way to encourage your child’s imagination is to invite some friends over for a play date. Your child will be able to work together with these friends to come up with a new way to play. This is good for their imagination since they can take their friends’ ideas and add their own twist on it.
Encouraging your children to use their imaginations is a great way to foster creativity and help them succeed and develop throughout their lives.
Elizabeth Lampman is a coffee-fuelled Mom of 2 girls and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She enjoys travelling, developing easy recipes, crafting, taking on diy projects, travelling and saving money!