Imagination 101, Lesson 1: Imagination Adventures

One skill that I have chosen to teach my children is imagination. Every so often, I will take my children on what I call an imagination adventure. It doesn't require anything but one's imagination (Note that this is a great game to play in the car) As my kids develop their imagination skills, I can see what they have learned, and how creative they really are.
How to play:
1. Have everyone playing close their eyes (Unless you are driving).
2. Everyone must picture what is happening.
3. As the story changes from what you were thinking, let it change, don't fight it (You can't say: "no, that is not what happened, what really happened was...")
4. Everyone gets an equal chance to share telling what happens next, sharing back and forth

Let me give you an example of the most recent imagination adventure with my middle son Colben. Colben and I were the first people ever to bike across Antarctica in which we popped one of our tires on the South pole. This was after getting our bike equipment from an underwater bicycle shop run by his brother Jaden. We also turned into killer whales for a little while in order to get to the bike shop.

My oldest son, Jaden, picked up some story telling tips from his great grandpa. The skill that he is working on is that when you tell a tall tale, you must include something real in order to make the imagination adventure feel real.

The most recent imagination adventure with him included a boy that never aged who longed to get to Everlasting Amusement Park in which he had never been. This boy lived in the town of Nowhere. In this story this boy found a friend in a glowing salamander and met a boa constrictor inside a tree. The boy was able to help the boa constrictor find a wife in exchange for helping him get into the amusement park with season tickets that never expired. This boy chose to live at the Everlasting Amusement Park where he became the owner of it raising 6 flags to honor each of the 6 individuals that helped him achieve his life goal, hence starting the first every 6-flags theme park.

Fostering this creativity in my children gives them the tools to truly visualize with their minds eye. This also helps them to role play, share and make wise decisions. As I play, I can tell that it exercises a part of my brain that I need to use more. Lastly, I often learn more about my kids knowledge, fears and desires in an imagination adventure than through any other method.

My children also get overly excited at times. I have used this as a tool to calm them down where the story has a calm, cool meadow with tall grass and a pleasant breeze or a sunset on a beach with water lapping at their toes in which their feet sink into the sand. For the calming imagination adventure, I usually tell the whole story start to finish where there is absolutely nothing exciting, but everything calming. Honestly, these stories rarely have a plot at all. They have helped me get a screaming toddler calm and to sleep within 10 minutes.

As we usually play these games before bed, I try to avoid or make light of anything frightening as this is essentially the same strategy for telling scary campfire stories. As a child, with my vivid imagination, I could never sleep after such campfire stories. Now as a parent, the last thing I want is for my child to stay awake any longer than he needs to.

What do you do to teach imagination?

Written by Jay Melashenko
Dad and Co-teacher of 3 creative boys ages 2,5, & 8