Dragons breathing fire on every living tree. Pterodactyls roaring through the sky. Fairies using their dainty little hands to collect your teeth and leave a dollar under your pillow. This all comes under imagination. Your mind is coming alive with such amazing fantasies, and it really isn’t childish at all. How else are you going to craft stories for Language and Literature?
Imagination is a utopian concept, where all the little stories come alive in your brain, and you craft the life you want for yourself in your mind. Let’s explore how important imagination is, age group by age group, chronologically.
The website miracle-recreation.com for toddlers says, “Imagination is an essential aspect of childhood. Whether they turn a box into a fort or an old jacket into a superhero cape, kids use their imagination to transform the world around them. These hours of make-believe and playtime fun are crucial for healthy child development. It allows kids to develop creativity, problem-solving and other important life skills.”
Here’s what startearly.org thinks about it: “Many times, adults thinks that imaginative play is just for the children, when in fact it is for everyone. During imaginative play, you get to be anyone, anything, be any place and experience life outside of reality. During imaginative play you get to be free. Through imaginative play children learn critical thinking skills, how to follow simple directions, build expressive and receptive language, increase social skills and learn how manage their emotions.” See how they didn’t mention an age group in this excerpt? A lot of ages fall under the word ‘children’. Usually, children fall under the age category 6-12, toddlers before and after that you’re just a really moody teenager.
Now, let’s talk about the importance of imagination within teenagers, and young adults (18-20). Emily Blumberg wrote on the Michigan Daily about lost imagination. Here’s the excerpt: “Through the process of social learning, we are conditioned into the confinements of our decided age group. As we move out of childhood (roughly ages 0-12) and into adolescence (roughly 13-19), we learn what is deemed socially acceptable for our particular age range and are encouraged to act accordingly. And at one point or another, the majority of us are told to put down the Legos and crayons in search of more “mature” pursuits; rather, those that fit our perceived expectations for adulthood.” So, what Emily is trying to say is, when we’re a kid, everyone around us matches our imagination vibe. But, as we grow up, one kid would loose it and suddenly we go from talking about Keeper of the Lost Cities and Harry Potter to strive to gain popularity and seem ‘cool’. Imagination within teenagers comes with a lot of benefits. While playing a musical instrument does provide more math skills, and way more technical thinking, combine it with a rich imagination and you’re practically unstoppable.
A while ago, during our assessments, we were asked to craft a narrative by picking one image, and use that as our prompt or muse and let our imagination flow freely. A huge majority of my class were able to get past the climax of the story, and were able to provide an ending, and I had a thousand words sitting in my response. I got really good achievement levels, because of my story’s tosses and turns. The other set of people had not been able to mount to their climax, and some could, but by the time the assessment reached the final ten seconds, a cliffhanger seemed the only viable option for them. The first thing that may pop up to your head, is, “Oh, well, they just didn’t manage their time properly.” or, “Such slow fingers.”—No. Some couldn’t think beyond the completion of the events in the image. This is seen in kids who do not read. Reading books is an essential component to feed your imagination. What happens in the book is what we can correlate to fantasies in our minds. Imagination is also a stress reliever. According to the National Institutes of Health, imagination does provide temporary relief for adults and children, by teleporting their attention to fantasy worlds. Here’s the excerpt: “Under continuous stress when reality becomes uncertain, both children and adults turn inward to imaginary worlds where they feel secure, gain control and clarity, play and envision solutions.”
You may wonder how it helps young adults, seeing as now all they read is Colleen Hoover for romance, and Sun Tzu for the… combat? But, betterhelp.com says that having a healthy imagination during your childhood can make you become a well-adjusted adult, and continuing it will have better prospects that you are yet to unlock. Here’s the excerpt: “Having an active imagination is not only part of a healthy childhood and growth into a well-adjusted adult, but it can also be a key part of keeping our minds healthy throughout adulthood. You don’t have to outgrow being imaginative; in fact, it may be better for you to keep that imagination alive throughout your life.“
From the above excerpt, you can already tell I was going to talk about how it’s important for adults, but since we already reached that point, I prefer to use the rest of my word count telling you this: Have you ever read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or Dork Diaries? Well, if you haven’t, then here’s what it’s about. Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries both explore the young, teen minds of two adolescents, navigating their middle school life. Diary of a Wimpy Kid explores the mind of a young boy named Greg (Gregory) Heffley and Dork Diaries explores the mind of a young girl named Nikki Maxwell. Both of these characters have such vivid imaginations when they’re writing, and it’s honestly so comforting to see a rich and alive imagination during their adolescence. So, I leave you with this: Keep your imagination alive, read as much as fantasy as you can, and squeeze some old-timey classics in there. You can read other book genres, too! Whatever deems your interest, buy it!
In essence, imagination is a pivotal part of your life. It not only helps you mentally, but can help you achieve school tasks with A plusses! Thank you so much for tuning into today’s blog and I hope to see all of you again, very, very soon! Later ✌️!
– Tanya 😄 (a.k.a. Prateeka)
I am a student of Indus International School Hyderabad.
