I find myself hovering over this quote: “Nature abhors such oppression and will always find a way to surmount and overturn paradigms that claim a final revelation.” I have my doubts, but I really hope you’re right. Thanks for writing. I’m enjoying your work.
Thanks Drew. Much appreciated. Sadly, the timeline can be prolonged, often beyond the life of an individual. So I'm not recommending anyone hold their breath.
How to broaden the inner world of a child growing up in a society that teaches him to neglect his own imagination? It seems that our materialism orients us toward disdaining the deep, sustained, meditative contemplation necessary for exploring the truths and insights in the oral/written stories handed down to us from the past. I feel this dilemma with my young daughter. I read fairy tales and myths to her every night, but find it much more difficult to get her to focus on and engage imaginatively with those oral/written stories than with the image-based ones fed to her by the tv. One of the hardest struggles I have as a parent is finding ways to inspire her to develop the capacity for contemplation that the imagination requires in order for it to transform these ancient tales into living teachers of truth and insight.
You don't say how young your daughter is, but with my sons we started by reading from books with pictures every night to get them into enjoying books, and only later switched to reading books without pictures (around five or six, I think). We also have limits on screens that other parents have seemed surprised by, and no screens at all after the evening meal - which has naturally encouraged them to read on their own in the evening after they go up to their rooms. We regularly go to the library and let them choose a bag full of books, which affords them agency in what they read. This is what has worked for us, and while I would never think to prescribe it, perhaps something in these remarks is helpful...? Whatever path you take with reading to your daughter, keep going!
Thank you so much! My daughter recently turned seven. My wife and I do regulate her tv watching, and she gets no tv after dinner, which gives us time to help her work on her reading skills, which her school has been slow in doing, and to read her longer stories before bed and take the time to talk about them with her. The question I posed in the previous comment reflected, perhaps, an unrealistic expectation on my part: maybe I should stop worrying about the two activities being in competition for her attention (though the tv does win out in that regard!). Maybe I'm pushing too hard with the post-storytelling talk; maybe she's already engaging with them in her imagination in a stimulating way. For example, the other night I read her Prince Lindworm. She smiled and said it was "lovely" and "weird", but didn't want to talk about it much beyond that, which is usually the case with the stories I read her. Maybe it's enough to simply read them to her and allow them to permeate her imagination without having to discuss them too much. Maybe the stories are doing their own work in her imagination and it's enough for me to simply expose them to her, so that when she can finally read on her own, the foundation I've laid with such classic fairy tales will have already helped her develop the capacity to engage with them in a meaningful way. Anyway, thanks again for your constructive suggestions!
Thank you for these remarks, Harry. I suspect you're doing far better than it sometimes feels. The curse of the good parent is to perpetually doubt that you are 'doing it right'! 😉
I find myself hovering over this quote: “Nature abhors such oppression and will always find a way to surmount and overturn paradigms that claim a final revelation.” I have my doubts, but I really hope you’re right. Thanks for writing. I’m enjoying your work.
Thanks Drew. Much appreciated. Sadly, the timeline can be prolonged, often beyond the life of an individual. So I'm not recommending anyone hold their breath.
How to broaden the inner world of a child growing up in a society that teaches him to neglect his own imagination? It seems that our materialism orients us toward disdaining the deep, sustained, meditative contemplation necessary for exploring the truths and insights in the oral/written stories handed down to us from the past. I feel this dilemma with my young daughter. I read fairy tales and myths to her every night, but find it much more difficult to get her to focus on and engage imaginatively with those oral/written stories than with the image-based ones fed to her by the tv. One of the hardest struggles I have as a parent is finding ways to inspire her to develop the capacity for contemplation that the imagination requires in order for it to transform these ancient tales into living teachers of truth and insight.
You don't say how young your daughter is, but with my sons we started by reading from books with pictures every night to get them into enjoying books, and only later switched to reading books without pictures (around five or six, I think). We also have limits on screens that other parents have seemed surprised by, and no screens at all after the evening meal - which has naturally encouraged them to read on their own in the evening after they go up to their rooms. We regularly go to the library and let them choose a bag full of books, which affords them agency in what they read. This is what has worked for us, and while I would never think to prescribe it, perhaps something in these remarks is helpful...? Whatever path you take with reading to your daughter, keep going!
Thank you so much! My daughter recently turned seven. My wife and I do regulate her tv watching, and she gets no tv after dinner, which gives us time to help her work on her reading skills, which her school has been slow in doing, and to read her longer stories before bed and take the time to talk about them with her. The question I posed in the previous comment reflected, perhaps, an unrealistic expectation on my part: maybe I should stop worrying about the two activities being in competition for her attention (though the tv does win out in that regard!). Maybe I'm pushing too hard with the post-storytelling talk; maybe she's already engaging with them in her imagination in a stimulating way. For example, the other night I read her Prince Lindworm. She smiled and said it was "lovely" and "weird", but didn't want to talk about it much beyond that, which is usually the case with the stories I read her. Maybe it's enough to simply read them to her and allow them to permeate her imagination without having to discuss them too much. Maybe the stories are doing their own work in her imagination and it's enough for me to simply expose them to her, so that when she can finally read on her own, the foundation I've laid with such classic fairy tales will have already helped her develop the capacity to engage with them in a meaningful way. Anyway, thanks again for your constructive suggestions!
Thank you for these remarks, Harry. I suspect you're doing far better than it sometimes feels. The curse of the good parent is to perpetually doubt that you are 'doing it right'! 😉