Parenting is…

Despite the bad press, film media enables us to experience the world fuller than any other art form. You can watch an ant walk up a path in a way that you’ll never observe without a sophisticated setup. You watch plants growing and blooming and get an idea of how that happens. You see so many more things than you could afford to in reality!

Maria Montessori talks about how imagination is not about pretend toys - it’s about getting familiar with the real things, which surround us. After all, you will never imagine biting into a lemon without doing so once.

Almost every day my son Alex and I go out to look at something interesting: mail trucks at the post office, fish at a pet store, machines at a construction site, animals at a park and it’s wonderful every time (see Creative Toddler Activities for ideas like these). But each morning we supplement that with bouncing kangaroos, dropping and breaking objects, waterfalls, oceans, mountains, hundreds, thousands of things. Alex talks about them all the time. “Moose, porcupine! Bubbles! Big dragon!” You can read about porcupine all you want, but having never seen one, you won’t imagine how she can break bubbles with her needles and why one must always be careful when hugging a porcupine.

There is a new television show, “Harold and the purple crayon.” It’s the only thing Alex will watch right now - again and again. A baby tries to fall asleep and helps himself by drawing adventures for himself. Each time he “animates” a different story, creating more as he goes on. When he gets in trouble, he comes out of it by drawing something useful, like a parachute. Every step of the way, he draws something to continue. It’s classically animated (none of the horrible stuff they produce these days on the cartoon network), very simple for a young child and literally shows the world, usefulness of objects, interaction with nature and animals and so on. It is so beautiful and creative, I still enjoy it the fifth time through. Alex usually asks for a specific episode by name. (Baby and buggies! Dragon, moose, pine!) hoping to get a little more out of the particular experience.

At night we have a routine: Dad reads Alex a book. Later, we cuddle and I tell him a story. He asks for the story to be about a particular character, almost always Pooh bear or Piglet. I make stuff up and he obviously loves it. But he doesn’t love it as much without the characters he can as easily visualize.Sponge bob square pants? You can leave that out of your child’s experience forever. And though that’s the majority of what you’ll see at random, there is so much that’s so good! Thomas & Friends, Curious George are our old favorites - they fell out of favor since Harold, which, unfortunately, is on HBO Family, so most people don’t get to enjoy it. Still, I am over the attitude that TV is evil or dangerous or will make my kid miss questions on the SAT.