Taking Time for Make-Believe

This morning I read a most interesting comment about women and stress. So often we feel that we need to be diligent, busy, productive, and with it! We do, but we also need to take time to feed our soul's: to relax in God's word and to spend time in just 'being'. In the book "Women and Stress", Jean Lush makes this statment that is worth contemplating:

"Take time for make-believe. Abandon yourself in play. I think God gives us an imagination for a reason. Christ knows the pressures we endure. Perhaps this is one reason He encourages us to become "as little children."


As a homeschool parent, it is sometimes very difficult to allow ourself time to step away from the many duties and responsibilities of being a keeper of the home, a home educator, and one who ministers to her community as well.  Although these are important duties, this quote encourages us to encompass more than just our responsibilities.  Yes, life is serious.  But we must also model joy, vibrancy, and play.  

So, what can you to today to create some "play" in your life? Is it time for a dress up tea party with your son or daughter? Or how about an hour at your sewing machine, creating something from your fabric stash that defies sensibility  Is it time to take a break from serious schoolwork and produce a skit or play with your children?  How about taking the week off from regular school to write a book with your child?  Use your imaginations together and write as they dictate.  Whatever it is you find to do, enjoy it with all your heart!  I think you'll be glad you did.

Stories & Imagination

Experiences can come alive when told in a story.  Words tell the story and a child's imagination creates pictures in their mind, making the story vibrant and real.  Advocates of some methods of reading instruction suggest that children learn to read from books that don't have pictures for this very reason.  They believe that giving only the words aids the child in developing an imagination and creativity.  In a day when television, videos, and movies are the norm, and where children start watching them from infancy, it's wise to take a break at times and allow the imagination to work.  This can be accomplished not only by reading books without words, but by listening to stories.  Parents, grandparents, and older siblings enjoy reading to children.  But sometimes a child's eager mind works faster and for a longer period of time than a loved ones voice can last!  Quality stories on CD and online podcasts are a good resource when this happens.  

Here's an example from history that can help you and your child create word pictures in your mind as you listen to the words.  Purposely try this listening experiment and see what pictures and scenes your minds creates.  When the story is over, spend time talking together, comparing what scenes your imaginations have developed.  Share using all your senses:  sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing.  The story we are using for this experience comes from Your Story Hour.  It takes place during the Civil War in America and is about the night riders and George Washington Carver.  You can listen to the story here.  Don't forget to turn on your imagination!

To Be a Child

“To be a child. . . It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into liftiness and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul.”

                                                        ~ Francis Thompson Shelly ~