Children's fantasies

The word "imagination" comes from the word "image"; Imagination means the ability to create images based on reality and manipulate them. A fantasy is a particular type of creative imagination, an unreal combination of real elements. Without creative imagination and fantasy, the world would not be the same as we used to see it: it would not have any works of art and inventions. Without imagination, we would have been stuck in the Stone Age. So children's fantasies are the basis for quite an adult progress.

Imagination and fantasy begin to develop inchild in preschool age. It is at this age that childhood fantasies are the most vivid, the most unusual. Children come up with imaginary friends and whole worlds, imagine themselves knights and superheroes, princes and wizards. They seem to exist in two parallel realities - real and fictitious. But at the same time a healthy child is quite capable of separating children's fantasies from reality. He shares, where everything is "really", and where - "as if", "for fun".

Imagination of the child can and should be developed, becausechildhood fantasies - the key to the development of creative abilities. Who knows, maybe in thirty years your little dreamer will compose a bestseller more abruptly "Harry Potter"? But even if he does not compose, the developed imagination will help him in the future. What you need to do to develop a child's imagination?

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  Read him books, tell tales: let other people's fantasies become the foundation for his own;
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  except for ready-made toys, offer substitute children: they perfectly develop imagination, because their scope is not so limited;
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  offer the child to play with the images-deputies: but let's imagine that we ... dogs, cowboys, musicians - yes anyone;
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  buy a child's accessories for creativity and do not limit it to creativity: yes, the grass is not blue - so what?

And do not scold the child if he drags "any rubbish" into the house. For him, a wooden stick is a magic sword, and a dandelion strung on a match is a fairy of flowers. The active use of substitute items is a sign of a well-developed fantasy. Do not throw them away, do not bother the child to fantasize. And if you stumble on them in different corners of the apartment, better teach the child to be neat.

But not all childhood fantasies are good and useful forchild. As you know, every coin has two sides. The negative "reverse side" of childhood fantasies is children's fears. The outlines of furniture in the dark seem terrible monsters, and book characters like Baba-Yaga seem to the child quite real. Often parents themselves feed these fears during "educational moments": "You will not eat porridge - Babay will come and take you!"

Fortunately, there are ways to deal with these fears. One of the most effective ways - to give the child an opportunity to laugh at his fear. You can invite the child to drawimaginary monster, and then draw a bouquet of flowers or a clown nose. And it turns out that the monster is not so terrible. Or buy a child a magic wand to fight monsters.

Also, childhood fantasies can be confused with lies. It happens that parents punish the child without figuring out whether the child lied to them or just imagined them. How to distinguish a lie from fantasy? Fantasy is harmless, it's just a flight of imagination. Unlike fantasy, lies are intentional; a child is inventing or distorting information in order to obtain personal benefits. But do not dramatize the situation: pathological liars are not found very often. Over time, the child will outgrow the lie, just need to let him know that lying is bad, and including - a personal example.

Children's fantasies are an indispensable attribute of childhood, without them it would be gray and uninteresting. Encourage the desire of your child to fantasize, but at the same time, make sure that he does not begin to confuse fantasies with reality.