Dare to Dream

Building and Understanding the Emotional World of Children

2007-08-06T12:13:00.000-04:00

Harvard Graduate School of Education, professor Paul Harris is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion and imagination. His recent book, The Work of the Imagination, gathers together several years of research carried out at Oxford University.

Paul Harris has spent many years of his career focused on researching imagination and Childhood development. I have shared a few links with you below. The information he has gathered is amazing.

http://gseweb.harvard.edu/news/features/harris09012002.html

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/learning/learning001a.html

Administration of Children and Families

2007-08-02T08:24:00.000-04:00

The Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance, supports low-income working families through child care financial assistance and promotes children's learning by improving the quality of early care and education and afterschool programs.

In 2001, Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan education reform bill. The goal of the Act was for every child to be reading at grade level by third grade. No Child Left Behind focuses specific attention on services for children who are more likely to fall behind in reading, such as children from low-income families or children who are English language learners.

President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush recognized that efforts to achieve the goals of No Child Left Behind must start before children enter kindergarten. In April 2002, the Bush Administration announced the Good Start, Grow Smart (GSGS) initiative to help States and local communities strengthen early learning for young children. The goal of GSGS is to ensure that young children enter kindergarten with the skills they will need to succeed at reading and other early learning activities.

PBS Kids

2007-08-02T08:19:00.000-04:00

I think we are all familiar with PBS kids netowork or at least Sesame Street, Big Bird etc. PBS is dedicated to helping children develop their full potential. There website has resources,links, and suggestions to help in engaging your child in creativity. I love to see my 2 year olds face when he watches Sesame street. I hope that you enjoy the quality of the PBS site as much as I have.

http://www.pbs.org/wholechild/providers/play.html

What Can I do as a Parent

2007-08-02T08:14:00.000-04:00

I work two jobs, go to school and am raising 4 children. I struggle with trying to find time to get all done. I wish there was more time in the day to foster creativity in my children though I know they do it on their own. I read this article by a few of the psychologists that make up "THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS" I have linked to the article below. It gives great resources on how to get involved in fostering creativity in your child. Take a peek and see what you can do as a parent.

http://www.amphi.com/~psych/creative.html

Learning Log

2007-07-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

Thank you for another wonderful and fulfilling experience. I have never been a blogger though I am very computer savy. I just never saw any interest in it. I am very happy with the site I created and hope that maybe others will begin to read it.

I enjoyed my time in class and meeting all of you. I enjoyed looking around a room full of passionate and determined women. I tried to balance so many things in my life and sometimes I just want to give up. You all gave me strength to continue to move on with my dreams. I enjoyed the level of committment and enthusiasm you all brought to the table.

I have such limited time in my life with family, work and school. Catherine, you have always allowed your students to research and design projects based on the passion they hold inside of them. You have always embraced the passion I have for my children and I am grateful for that.

You have been extremely supportive of me over the semesters I have attended Cambridge College. I hope that in the future I will be able to build upon the skills that we have learned in your class.

Thank you all for sharing your passion and life experiences. You have all been an inspiration!

2007-07-11T14:11:00.000-04:00

The child’s imagination – what a powerful force!

A child’s imagination is untamed. Parenting should not tame it but encourage it. Your child can use his imagination for play, for goal setting and much more.
Here are some parenting tips for encouraging imagination and imaginative play in your child.

This is a great website. You can connect with other parents as well as learn goal setting for your children. Take a peek! I think you will enjoy it.

http://www.kidsgoals.com/child-imagination.shtml

2007-07-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

The Development of a Capacity for Imagination in Early Childhood
Linda C. Mayes, M.D. and Donald J. Cohen, M.D.

Imagination as a mental capacity is part of a line of development that begins in the earliest symbiotic interactions between mother and infant, takes further shape as the child moves from dyadic to triadic relations, and culminates in a fully mature capacity to reflect upon in thought one's wishes and feelings vis-à-vis multiple others. Particularly for the 3-to 5-year-old child, imagination represents a special mode of mental functioning which allows him to expand his internal object world, motivates him toward increasingly complex relationships with others, and is a central precondition for the creation of the self-defining fantasies characteristic of the oedipal phase. The central neurocognitive precondition for an imaginative capacity is the ability to distinguish thought from action and understand that others as well as oneself are motivated to act because of mental states such as feelings, beliefs, and fantasies. In this paper, we present a view of imagination that integrates observations from psychoanalytically informed studies of the emergence of fantasy
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PSC.047.0023A

"Close Connection of Pretense and Action in Early Childhood"

2007-07-03T11:24:00.000-04:00

Eric Schwitzgebel from University of California has done significant research in regard to Simulation Theory and Early childhood. Here is en excerpt from his research paper published in August 2000. A link to the whole paper is listed below :

" The story runs as follows. One thing that children are really good at from a very early age-two years- is pretend play. They can scoot a block across the floor,pretending it is a truck. They can pretend they are parents giving their baby(a doll) a bath. Our understanding of other minds has been its origin in such childhood pretense. Just as a child can pretend to be a parent, a child can pretend to be her parent in particular. Engaging in such pretense, the child can do essentially what adults do in the imaginative transformations described by simulation theorists, and thus they can understand others' mental states and behaviors. And this,in fact, is how they ordinarily do understand other people's mental states and behavior."

www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/Sim000803.pdf

2007-06-30T08:38:00.001-04:00

Paul Harris, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, says there are two very different ways to define imagination. "You can either see it as disappearing or waning during childhood, or you can see it the way I do, as persisting throughout life," Harris says. The message in his book, "The Work of the Imagination," is this: "Suppose we think of pretend play and fantasy as something that's quite characteristic of young children -- it makes them playful and endearing but doesn't really contribute to their later cognitive development and by adulthood it has in some sense disappeared. I tried to argue that this is wrong," Harris said. "Human beings have a gift for fantasy, which shows itself at a very early age and then continues to make all sorts of contributions to our intellectual and emotional life throughout the lifespan."

2007-06-30T08:31:00.003-04:00

Not only does imagination help a child deal with emotions more effectively, it also helps a child handle problems. Research shows that a child with a developed imagination has a greater ability to deal with stress and upheaval.
A recent study by Professor Sandra Russ at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University found that first and second graders who show high levels and quality of fantasy and imagination in their play scored higher on a test measuring their ability to accommodate to stressful situations. More imaginative kids were better able to deal with forgetting their lunch or being picked on by a bully.
"Because children come up with different ideas in fantasy play, taking on different roles and voices, it's practice for divergent thinking and problem solving," says Russ in an interview with the American Psychological Association's "Monitor Online." Divergent thinking means that imaginative children can generate different ideas about a topic. The ability to generate alternatives allows children to become better problem solvers.

2007-06-30T08:31:00.001-04:00

"A child can express his real self in imagination because the imagination is unmediated by anybody else's expectations or demands," says Alan Flashman MD, a child psychiatrist. "It's not imposed on him. It comes from within his inner life. Imagination is important because it integrates a child's feelings and dreams and actions. It's a place where a child can experiment and feel control and power. But we should respect the integrity and freedom of the experience rather than trying to quantify it as a utilitarian activity."
Nonetheless, a child with an active imagination benefits because he has a way to deal with intense emotions. New Jersey school psychologist, Beth Falk, PhD, explains: "Kids can become overwhelmed by their emotions but by using their imaginations, they can master their feelings. If a child is afraid of a monster, he can make up a story about hunting down the monster and scaring it and turning it into something else. He's found a way to transform it."
In her classes, actress and drama teacher Andrea Peskoff has seen students spontaneously act out their problems. Six-year-old Heather, an only child, was anxious because her mother was pregnant. In drama class, she crawled on the floor, becoming the baby she feared would draw her mother's attention away from her. In this way, the new baby became a less fearful proposition.

2007-06-30T08:29:00.001-04:00

Imagination: the ability to remember, dream, create, improvise and in the process entertain oneself anywhere and anytime.

In today's achievement-oriented world, parents sometimes give imagination short shrift. We forget that it is a gift to be encouraged. It is valuable in its own right, allowing a child the space to be his authentic self. And we driven parents who worry about our child's success can rest assured that imagination also has extrinsic rewards: enhancing a child's ability to deal with feelings and problems.

2007-06-29T22:20:00.001-04:00

Children use a different method to see new places and experience new things --they use their imagination. While a four-year-old named Tracy might only be allowed to walk from home to pre-school and back home again, "Queen Tracy" rules a kingdom, lives in a big castle and rides her horse whenever she wants. The life of three-year-old Michael might be boring, but "Michael the fireman" is a hero.

The magic of early childhood is that children can not only imagine new and interesting situations to enhance their lives but they can also learn from these imagined situations. By putting on a cook's hat and baking up a storm, a child feels happier and more independent, and also thinks about what it really means to be a cook. He reviews his experiences with Mom or Dad in the kitchen and remembers what ingredients his parent use. In deciding to put the pretend pot on the stove or in the oven, he has the opportunity to expand his own world while applying his observations.
As adults, we learn from the world we live in and from our experiences; children do the same. But children have an added talent that every parent should encourage. Children learn not only from what they are, but also from what they want to be.

2007-06-29T20:48:00.000-04:00

Here is something of a new concept for me. I beleive that my responsability as a parent is to encourage my children to reach for the stars. No matter what it is they dream for their future I will be the support that helps them to get to their goal. In a newsletter they posted this :

"The first trait we need to develop in our children is not to let the feeling of awe overcome them even when confronted with a person of exceptional stature. They should fully understand that all men, be he the President of USA or the Chief Justice of India , have feet of clay. What one person have achieved can not only be equalled but also bettered by them. The only thing they have to learn is to be able to draw a line between disrespect and being at ease in the presence of elders or authority-figures. They would do well to respect authority but not fear it. There are rules, as in any game, to be observed in the arena of life. Let the children learn to play the game well."

I agree if they they believe in the power they hold within them their are no limits to what they can achieve.

The Dreams that you Dare to Dream really do come true!

2007-06-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Our Children are the gateway to the future. Encouraging them to follow their dreams is an important part of who they will become in the future. Developing the imagination of a child will enable them to encompass the idea that they can do anything they set their mind to.

"DARE TO DREAM" and the Possabilities are endless!!!