I often wonder what it is we really teach kids today. As infants and toddlers they have the drive to self learn, and dream. As children we sent them to school, and at home give them the freedom to imagine. If we are good parents we teach them right from wrong.
I have a middle school aged son. Now he is not typical as he also struggles with an anxiety disorder, which has improved a lot with help from doctors and medication. I like to think his mother and I are part of the solution as well. In most ways though he is typical. He is in the “all about me stage”.
This stage is marked by the loss of some of that outward imagination. Don’t misunderstand me he still has a great imagination, just less avenues for it to emerge. It is replaced by this need to put every situation in how it affects them, and what they want. No longer are Mom and Dad all knowing, they in fact know nothing. I know I never seem to know anything.
We also have a nine year old. This is the year he has finally begun to exert his independence, and challenge the status quo. He has also realized he won’t marry mom someday, and live with us forever.
It’s somewhere between that nine year old, and around that 14 year old that those dreams we talked about in Part I of this series become, well practical. We start to dream and imagine our lives out of the house, with our own family. We picture ourselves working and having kids of our own. We decide that we will be nothing like our parents, yet we always are to a point.
So what the “practical dreams” aren’t dreams. They are our way of learning to fit into society. And what society does is change. And the practical dreams change with it.
So the next time you dream, dream about something fun. Stay tuned for more of this series.
~Another Day
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on Jun 21st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Nothing to do with the post, but I really like the new look!
on Jun 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Thanks!