Storytelling is an art. We all have grown up on stories – haven’t we? The stories that your grandma used to tell, the kings and demon stories that you heard from your mum or the endless hours of cartoon networks that you watched – those were the staples of your childhood, isn’t it?
My mum tells me I was quite at story telling myself. I still remember few incidents. I was probably in the second standard when I was very fascinated with dimples, because one of my friends at school had dimples and I didn’t! I would constantly pester my grandma on – why on earth I didn’t have a dimple! She had said sometime ‘you need to ask a fairy’.
For two nights after dinner I escaped into our terrace watching up the moonlit sky waiting for the fairy! One fine day I asked my mum if she could see the dimple on my cheeks that I could now see. When she replied in the negative – I narrated how the fairy had come down one night and pinched my cheeks and said now I am going to have dimples! So how on earth she couldn’t see them?
That’s how children are – master storytellers. Their innocence and inquisitive mind are the perfect ingredients for this skill.
I am trying to instill life skills into my son – who is going to turn one next week. I like reading to him, I sing for him, make faces for him right since he was two months old. That time he used to sleep faster with all the Rock a By Baby and Hush Little Baby. And now at 12 months we are quite a pro at making faces, making sounds, cooing, laughing, giggling and doing a lot of naughtiness.
I want to give him all the freedom that he needs to be a kid. As a parent I want him to have a free mind and make mistakes. It’s only by making mistakes he’ll learn what’s right, what’s wrong. I want him to run wild with imagination. Isn’t it great that we give our children the power to think and imagine whatever they want? I want him to come up share crazy stories with me. His stories on becoming an astronomer or may be Iron Man! (By the way he’s keeping himself busy in the kitchen, smashing things up – I won’t be surprised if he wants to become HULK!)
POWER OF IMAGINATION
The other day I was listening to a kid in the elevator who couldn’t stop describing about some sea world and creatures. I love how they express themselves – without any inhibition, so much of expression and such integrity.
I think it’s not long, before Bluey, my son, would be rushing towards me with some stories of castles, sea world, super heroes or god knows what. I guess I’ll enjoy them. Isn’t it good that their day to day stuffs help them to go wild with imagination? Colgate these days come with packs with interesting sea creatures and trivia about them. Kids can cut out the shapes and play and come up with interesting stories themselves. Imagine opening a pack of toothpaste and getting a shark inside! Boosting them to create their own #colgatemagicalstories.
Listen to some wonderful stories by kids.
