Adults Have Many Roles in Children's Imaginary Friends and Traditions
University Park, Pa. -- Children who spend their free time befriending fire-breathing dragons or traveling through time in a magic school bus are not only having fun, they're also developing their minds. During the holiday season, dreaming of how Santa is able to make his deliveries around the world in one night, and how reindeer are able to fly, is a similar mental exercise. Active imaginations are a healthy part of childhood.
But an active imagination is good for adults too.
"For both adults and children, playing with fantasy or thinking about the world through fantasy play may take the form of art or other creative processes or productions, intellectual projects or relationships with people and objects. Fantasy and play are not things that we outgrow," said Gail Boldt, Penn State associate professor of education. "They serve ongoing important functions in our lives. The materials and the forms that are socially, intellectually and emotionally recognized and used for adult fantasy are often rather different than what we see coming from children and are perhaps not named as fantasy or play."
Often parents like to get involved with and feed into their children's imaginations, if for no other reason than it takes them back to their own childhood, said Boldt. Primary examples are when parents work to develop strong beliefs in the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and Santa Claus.
Cindy Dell Clark, Penn State Brandywine associate professor of human development and family studies, said characters such as these are more of a family ritual. She compares them to going to a religious service on Sundays and celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks. She said they're more expressive of feelings and faith than anything else.
Clark said adults are important participants, especially at Christmas: adults often choose gifts because they like to see the look of awe on their children's faces and participate in the emotional experiences they have on Christmas morning. Clark added that when filmed observations are analyzed, it's often because of parents or grandparents that children sit on Santa's lap at the mall.
As for childrent, Clark said that believing in someone like Santa Claus or the Easter bunny can help develop a sense of spiritual or religious faith in children.
"Children get experience in how to sustain beliefs through letting go of doubt," Clark said, "so these are symbols of great importance to families. It teaches children to accept tcertain sorts of hings on faith."
Clark, a child anthropologist and author of "Flights of Fancy, Leaps of Faith: Children's Myths in Contemporary America," found in interviews that children widely connect Santa Claus and God. God tells Santa if you've been bad or good, as one child explained. Or as another perceived, they live next door to each other, Clark said, explaining the children's beliefs. As children get older, she said they might not have the same literal beliefs in Santa but still believe in what he symoblizes, such as generosity toward children.
Clark's research with mainstream Amercian kids has not yet been extended to non-Christian children.
Boldt, who also said the fantastical ideas regarding Santa and friends are social traditions, said they are like membership cards in a given society or culture.
"One easy way of seeing this is to talk with, for example, Jewish adults and children about memories of feeling excluded from full social participation around Christmas and Santa traditions," she said.
Both Boldt and Clark said that imagination and characters that come from imaginary play, whether they are culturally known characters or the child's own imaginary friend, are healthy and an important part of growing up.
"It is difficult to find early childhood classrooms, for example, where play is part of the curriculum," Boldt said. "In many districts recess has been abolished. Children's opportunities for free fantasy play is replaced by organized lessons and adult-run play groups. I understand the sense of necessity that drives some of these decisions but I think they are mistakes and I work to resist and argue against them."
This press release courtesy of Penn State's Department of Public Information
Last modified: 12/19/07 | Contact Webmaster
