Kids losing their imagination?

[AdminAssistant]

Can I be honest? If I saw someone cosplaying a building, I would definitely be scratching my head. The comments were rude, of course, but dressing as a building is something outside of the norm to which I've been exposed.

It's easy to blame video games and toys, that's just a different flavor of the "those darn kids/it was better in my day" attitude. But, I'm telling you, you can give a kid a room full of electronics and fancy toys that beep and boop. But if you offer to go run outside and play cops and robbers...the kid will take the imaginative play time almost every time. I've watched my nephew several times in the past couple of months, and Lord, I WISH the kid would sit still for a while instead of wanting to play Avatar or Power Rangers or whatever has his fancy this month.

Some kids have vivid imaginations, to the point of distraction (can't focus in class because of a tendency to daydream). Some can't imagine to the same extent. Imagination can be facilitated through a number of things - parents spending time playing with their kids, giving their kids time to relax, reading to kids and encouraging kids to read on their own.

[draco664]

This child flat out told me that if she saw me at a convention "cosplaying a building", she would take that as a sign that I was "crazy and to be avoided".

The irony being, of course, that the vast percentage of the population who doesn't cosplay would probably react the same way to him wearing his pikachu outfit in public.

[anakhouri]

I can only really speak for myself and my kid, since I don't know much about parenting other than what I've puzzled out myself.

We made a conscious choice not to give Khan many electronic toys. He has quite a few action figures and some vehicles, and that's it. The only electronic toy he has at the moment is his Sentinel robot. We used to let him play video games (Kirby and the old Mario) until the day I told him to turn it off and he threw a 10-minute screaming fit. He is now on indefinite hiatus concerning video games. He gets 1 hour of TV a day (except Saturday movie night). When he is older he will be allowed video games and TV on a more frequent basis, as I don't want it to become the Forbidden Thing that tempts him. But right now I feel like he is really forming as a person and I intend to foster imagination as much as possible. Right now all our playtime is unstructured, but I intend to get him into sports and such in a year or two (he is completely incapable of following rules at the moment...I am a little afraid that he will be lost when it comes to games just because I have not enforced any game 'rules' when we play).

I have seen other kids with broad imaginations who are exposed to TV and video games almost constantly. But Khan's imagination is pretty amazing; he role-plays like a champ. The problem is that both the Husband and I are very imaginative, so I can't say definitively if this is due to our parenting practices or natural affinity.

The other day he put m&ms on his knuckles and said, "I'm Thanos, I have the Infinity Gauntlet!"

I feel like even though our society claims to value creativity, in practice it does not. For instance, schools are cutting arts classes left anfdright. The culture of achievement doesn't encourage it- there are places where kids have to take tests to get into preschool, for God's sake. Most artists, writers and musicians are not supported outside of their community of other artists, writers and musicians; I can tell you it is very, very hard to get a publisher to give a new writer a second glance. And since most musicians, artists and writers are not usually very financially successful, society doesn't really value them- since 'success' is almost invariably measured by how much money you make. It will take a major attitude shift before our society (mine, at least: America) really starts valuing creativity the way they say they do.

[AdminAssistant]

Nephew has really benefited from sports. Sis and BIL let him play one during the school year (basketball) and one during the summer (baseball). The activity is good on its own, but having to play according to rules and lose gracefully is a really important thing to learn.

[siead_lietrathua]

i think when it comes to video games, the age is definatly a factor. really young kinds in their formative years, say up to 5, should probably be less exposed to it. (and it's probably better for their eyes to not be glued on a screen too). but once a kid is in their pre and pubescent years, it's probably okay for prolonged playing. they've developed enough without them to be dependant on them. although watching for signs of game-addiction should definatly be high on the list.

[fireheart17]

I don't buy that. Anecdotes don't equal data, but, my nephew (7) loves...LOVES...video games. The only way it's affected his imagination is that it's given him new worlds to imagine himself in. He plays Mario on the Wii, but also 'plays' Mario elsewhere.

I think ngc is more on the money, kids are just too over scheduled.

I think you're both right. A couple of games here and there are fine, the problem is when the kid ONLY wants to play video games.

Basically, the way I read it was, video games aren't great for young kids developing an imagination and a relationship with their surroundings (this goes all the way through elementary school and even into the early teen years.) The way it goes is this: kids need to explore the world and learn how things cause and effect when they do things. They need to explore every aspect of the playground and integrate it into their developing minds. Stuff like that. Video games, even ones that say they're completely immersive, can never be as detailed or interactive as the real world, and if kids spend too much time exploring a pretend world and doing the limited things it allows and not enough time exploring the real world, their interactions are going to become stifled and they'll be accustomed to only thinking of one way to do things.

Limiting a kid's video game time is a good step towards increasing their imaginative capacity, but that's all it is- a single step. There are a lot of other factors that come in to play.

Sounds a little bit like a Steiner method of thinking (which at a young age discourages even TV for that same reason).

I feel like even though our society claims to value creativity, in practice it does not. For instance, schools are cutting arts classes left anfdright. The culture of achievement doesn't encourage it- there are places where kids have to take tests to get into preschool, for God's sake. Most artists, writers and musicians are not supported outside of their community of other artists, writers and musicians; I can tell you it is very, very hard to get a publisher to give a new writer a second glance. And since most musicians, artists and writers are not usually very financially successful, society doesn't really value them- since 'success' is almost invariably measured by how much money you make. It will take a major attitude shift before our society (mine, at least: America) really starts valuing creativity the way they say they do.

Down here, Arts programs are starting to gain more funding, but not much. Some people seem to view schools as doing "too much" of it, arguing that we should be focusing ONLY on the 3 R's. I beg to differ from those people and I have frequently argued how the Arts can play a role in both the curriculum and in future life. Here's a rough understanding of The Arts can play a role in the 8 areas of learning:

Visual/Performing Arts: self-explanatory.
English: encourages creativity in story-writing and imaginative ways of thinking to help recall spelling, words and the like. Also throw writing and performing plays into that.
Mathematics: my Year 10 maths teacher once said to me that Music is around 80% mathematics. He then said if you're good at Music, you're good at Maths. I HATED Maths but loved Music.
Science: creativity and using your initiative when conducting experiments.
Studies of Society and Environment (which includes History, Civics, Geography and so on): learning about different cultures through dance, song and the like and also thinking "outside the box" in ways to help address certain issues in society.
Design/Technology: this one links more with Visual Arts if anything.
Health/PE: Down here, dance forms part of the PE curriculum, although depending on the school, it may also be integrated into the Arts curriculum as well. (especially if the school does not have a specialist PE teacher)
Second Language Study: again, learning through songs, dance, drama and stories can help with recall and make things more fun. (In fact as I typed this, I started humming "Sur Le Pont D'avignon" out of nowhere)

In terms of toys I fully agree on several aspects. Some people just need to scale BACK on the toys and let kids develop their own curiosity and imagination. As for the making of some toys, you don't always need tins, sometimes just two foam cups with a piece of string poked through them can work too. Some of the role-play stuff for kids is great i.e. the toy kitchens and whatnot, all you'd need to give them are some pots and pans to let them go wild. Kmart down here is starting to do just that, as they've released their OWN range of toys, which aren't brand-named but show the same purpose.

Someone in the comments in the article mentioned Steiner dolls: a Steiner doll is a cloth doll which sort of resembles a Cabbage Patch kid, but with a cloth face instead of a plastic one and minimal facial features (some have no faces O.o). In fact, the whole goal of Steiner toys IS to encourage creativity and imagination. There are a couple of puzzles I have made note of for my classroom in the future: one is a "rainbow arch" puzzle, the other is a "large spiral" puzzle. Both are strong wood (and therefore durable).

The rainbow arch puzzle is basically as it says on the can: it's a rainbow, but each colour band is a single piece. So you can create different patterns with them, both 2D and 3D, but they can also be used as bridges and archways for toy cars, as a seat for your dolls, as a fruit bowl, as a monster and so on.

The spiral puzzle is basically 12 different colours, going in a circle from red to violet, with each colour band having six pieces (so 72 pieces all up). You can rearrange the pieces both in and out of the spiral into lots of different patterns, including various flower patterns and other ideas. It's sort of like a larger version of a Tangram.

[Amanita]

Can I be honest? If I saw someone cosplaying a building, I would definitely be scratching my head. The comments were rude, of course, but dressing as a building is something outside of the norm to which I've been exposed.

Here's the artwork my last cosplay outfit was based on:
http://ladyamanita.deviantart.com/ga...et=24#/d3e0t39

Is that really so out of place at a sci-fi convention? (I don`t do anime cons, with their narrower focus of on-topic costumes, and rules that tend to ban original characters from their contests)
Sadly enough, even the cosplay community doesn't value creativity as much as it claims to. It's not just truly unique concepts like mine that get flack, a lot of people consider original characters in general to be somehow less valid, the red-headed stepchildren of the cosplay world. Some people say that unless it`s an established character, it doesn`t count. Others are harsher still, saying that only Anime or Japanese media counts. Others view originals as a lazy way out, the path for those too lazy to research a strict recreation.
(Unfortunately some OC cosplayers contribute to that stereotype- throw on some random stuff from the closet and say ìt`s an OC)

Sadly, I`ve also seen cosplayers bashed for being the wrong race, wrong height, and so on- an Asian Sweeney Todd for example, just doesn`t compute for whatever reason, and they have qualms at all about letting the cosplayer know it, in nasty language.

[HYHYBT]

A building I can understand fine (though it reminds me of that scene in Big) but why would anyone choose Sweeney Todd?

[AdminAssistant]

why would anyone choose Sweeney Todd?

Probably a Burton-esque/steampunk-y Sweeney Todd.

It's not that it's out of place, and that's a great looking costume btw, but if I saw that, I would have to process, "Is that a...building? Yes, that's a building. Hm." Before going on with my day.

[Amanita]

Thanks! I had fun with that one- I took the building's black and grey color scheme, its silver pinstripes, and red and white accent colors and had fun working them into an outfit that's visually interesting. I remember another board I'm on- somebody said that if you asked several people to personify a building, you would get back several entirely different visions. One would give you a character that looked essentially human, wearing a suit. Another would give you something akin to a transformer, like that "Big" toy concept. And yet another might come up with something like what I did. Personification/humanization can be a blast, there's several groups devoted to it on DeviantArt alone.

And yes, the Sweeney Todd cosplayer I mentioned does do the Tim Burton version of him, and looks great at it!

[HYHYBT]

(By the way, your design is *much* better than something like in Big... though it was hard for me to recognize as a building, partly because I'd never seen the original until looking it up for comparison.)

[Amanita]

Thanks! It's very heavily anthropomorphized, not like the transformer in Big. One Penn Plaza's a handsome building, and security there loved the outfit too, they thought it was cool that somebody was inspired by their building- they invited me into the lobby for a better look. Although at the time I didn't have the crown done, I improvised with a braided wig- the braids were my elevator cables

[Seifer]

I think one part of the loss of imagination is the new focus on using the television to "teach." Kids watch a TON of t.v. nowadays instead of reading or playing inside/outside - time they would normally be using their imagination and weaving it into their play. All that t.v. is detrimental, because kids get used to watching shows where the scenes change quickly and they only have to focus on one thing or one character for a few seconds at a time. They get to the point where it's harder for them to focus on more time-consuming projects, like reading a book, building something, or making up their own games.

I was a 90's kid, and even though I remember watching a lot of t.v., my parents also bought me lots of books to read (and they also read to/with me, which is very important) and toys to play with. I still have an active imagination to this day, and tend to use it every time I watch a movie or listen to music.

[jackfaire]

It's not the video games, it's not the movies, it's not the tv shows and it's not the lack of DIY toys.

It's the fact that if a kid says, "We are pirates" the parents start freaking out and thinking "Oh my god my kid has a mental disorder she thinks she is a pirate."

I am not exaggerating and not kidding. Kids are being drugged and treated for schizophrenic related illnesses because they have vivid imaginations. To the point where we make it clear to our kids what is pretend and what is not and unless our kids specifically preface what they are saying with "We are playing pretend" parents assume the kid really truly believes it's real.

[Bloodsoul]

Oddly enough video games have tended to fuel my imagination more so than most anything else. I create a character in one game, think "she's really neat!," use her in Dungeons & Dragons, and overtime she becomes powerful, even becoming a deity.

Then I think, "well, a deity needs a cleric, right?" So I create a cleric-character after the deity is retired, and she becomes powerful and starts to run her own city, with a wizard's college, bard conservatory, a thieve's guild, etc. Also there must be other deities in the pantheon, right? Thanks to one character I made in a videogame, I've nearly a fully, fleshed-out world on my hands.

(Then again, maybe it doesn't count since it involved creating something of my own to begin with; for example I get more emotionally attached to the custom-built parties in "The Bard's Tale" or "Ultima III" than I do with the cast of "Final Fantasy XIII")