Storytelling & Imaginative Play

The important of Storytelling & Imaginative play. Remember how peanut butter tasted when you were a kid? Ever wonder why they don’t make it like that any more? Ah--sad to say, it’s made the same; we adults just don’t taste the same. In childhood, taste is intense; vision is intense, smells are overwhelming, and every day is an adventure where all is new, mysterious, awesome and wondrous.

The early child wants to explore the world and play in it all the time. "All I want to do is make things and sing," my seven year old sang out. Making things, including a joyful noise, is a pretty good agenda, wouldn’t you say?

Childhood, when lived fully, prepares for adulthood perfectly. It’s a time of constant learning, and learning takes place through simply being a child, day dreaming, "let’s pretend" play, making things and doing nothing. The toddler sifting sand through fingers is learning--all action is learning; all learning is play and play is re-creation, the foundation of creativity.

The playing child is the imaginative child. He or she can imagine alternatives to a threatening or unfair situation and is far less prone to violence as a solution than the child who can’t play. The child who has no inner world of images to draw on can’t imagine alternatives to his immediate sensory world, and so has no hope of changing things.

Without imagination the child will not be able to grasp abstract issues or subjects later. Unable to see the boat or truck in the matchbox, the child will be unable to "see" alternatives to violence when the going gets rough; he will not be able to "see" with the inner eye what the outer mathematical symbol stands for; he will not be able to “see” a solution unless that solution is presented graphically from without.

So nature’s prime agenda in childhood is to develop imagination--ability to create images not present to the sensory system, and this takes place through storytelling and play. A little girl told me she liked radio so much more than television because the pictures on the radio were more beautiful. Like pictures in stories, the radio pictures were beautiful because they were her own, products of the awesome creative power inside her.

Harvard’s Howard Gardner points out that an infant-child not played with never will learn to play; the child who can’t play and is not told stories doesn’t develop imagination. That child’s childhood only partly unfolds, and their intelligence and well-being are at risk. This means that to help our children we as adults must rediscover play, "let’s pretend," storytelling--and love. Then we can awaken the same in our children.

Finally, the child needs time just to be a child--time to daydream, leave the outer world of corrections and demands and enter the quiet inner world of the heart. From this inner world, the balance with the outer world is found; memory and learning are assured, and the child lives in the natural joy that learning about his wonder-filled world should bring.

written by: Joseph Chilton Pierce (revised and reprinted with permission from the Suncoast Waldorf Association)
Joseph Chilton Pierce is the author of several books and articles on childhood, including the bestselling book Magical Child.