Imagination: Seat of Ideas

I overheard some children outside my compound talking to themselves, the boy said, “imagine a family with 5 children, and everyone dies except the 3rd child…”

I did not hear the rest of the conversation as they moved on to their destination. Their conversation reminded me of a work-in-progress situation I am on with my children. I noticed my children were always telling me, “Mummy imagine…then they go ahead to analyze the worst-case scenario of a situation for me.

When I was younger, I could vividly imagine things always going wrong and crying because I was sure it would happen like that… I had to struggle to change my imagination to what I wanted to see in adulthood, and it’s still a struggle sometimes.

I don’t know why the children on the street were trying to imagine a whole family dead except one child, neither do I know why my children want to imagine the worst case of things but I have realized for a child to know how to effectively use his/her imagination, it has to be taught if you don’t want them going like a yo-yo with their minds.

What is the big deal about imagination anyway? It’s the seat of everything, no exaggeration, your imagination can make or mar you. So whenever my children ask me to imagine a worst-case scenario, I ask them, why don’t we imagine what we want to happen and how it will happen instead?

I go ahead to teach them the power and use of imagination. Sometimes before they sleep off, I tell them to let’s imagine, then I paint a picture and ask them to put things in there or other times I tell them to imagine something in school they want to be changed going differently.

It’s still an ongoing lesson but I see the fruits while I am watching a cartoon with them, they show me instances where a character is using their imagination positively or negatively. At least they now know the difference, we are going somewhere.