When I was a child, I thought as a child
Dec. 7th, 2007 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyIn the comments to my post the other day, one thread turned into a debate on the raising of children and, more specifically, whether or not teaching small children that characters like Santa and the Easter Bunny exist is the right thing to do.
It's a question that had never crossed my mind before. It would certainly have previously never occurred to me that people wouldn't have Santa in their lives, but human experience is vast and wide and so, hey, maybe it's something I should think about.
In one corner of the argument, we have the idea that telling kids about Santa and the Bunny and the like and not telling them they don't exist is a good thing, and in the other we have the idea that ensuring that kids know the difference between fantasy and reality as early as possible is the correct way to raise them.
This second position is one I'd disagree with, and I've sat down and thought about why I disagree.
Childhood play is the thing that creates us as adults. It's the point in life when (theoretically, anyway) we can discover how the world works in a safe environment, taking controlled risks of action and idea and playing with concepts. Children are born as blank slates; to a child there's no more reason that a man with a 64" waist can't hop down your chimney and steal mince pies than there is for the internal comustion engine to work and part of human development is working out where the dividing line between two places is: those places being What Is, and What Is Not.
For a long time in the development of the childs mind, those places are the same place and they become separate through experience and play. I'd argue that it's healthier for children to learn as much as possible for themselves where that dividing line is, because that dividing line is, to my mind, an important place. Between What Is and What Is Not lies a very blurry division which I'll call What Might Be.
As an example, Orville and Wilbur Wright apparently spent their childhoods drawing flying machines, and it's interesting to wonder if their parents ever took them aside to tell them that people actually couldn't fly but they should continue playing their little game anyway. I suspect that if their parents ever had said that, then they'd've been proven right in the long run.
In the long term, having a well-developed sense of (and a particularly blurry line of) what Might Be seems to be a good thing; the most of the most psychologically well-adjusted and successful in their chosen vocations people I've met tend to have had a childlike sense of wonder and imagination. This leads to what irritating self-help books call 'Outside the box' thinking. I think it's much more likely that a child who thinks it's possible for a jovial fellow to fly in a sleigh without evidence will as an adult will be more likely to think that the lines of a box are there only as guidelines rather than rules.
It's not just me who thinks that, either. There's a lot of empirical evidence that such thinking is really good for you - Carl Gustav Jung once observed that he'd never seen any psychological problem fully cured without the patient regaining that sense of wonder at life and developing a wider sense of What Might Be (or words to that effect). Compared to Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind ("What children need is facts"), I know who I'd rather listen to.
I might be wrong about all of this, but in the unlikely event that I ever breed I'll be telling my children that a fat man dispenses gifts with a liberal hand, Rabbits bring chocolate eggs, and there will be an elf behind every tree in the woods and a mermaid behind every rock at the seaside, and I'll let them figure out I'm bullshitting them all by themselves.
But after all this rambling, what do you think?
[Poll #1102042]
It's a question that had never crossed my mind before. It would certainly have previously never occurred to me that people wouldn't have Santa in their lives, but human experience is vast and wide and so, hey, maybe it's something I should think about.
In one corner of the argument, we have the idea that telling kids about Santa and the Bunny and the like and not telling them they don't exist is a good thing, and in the other we have the idea that ensuring that kids know the difference between fantasy and reality as early as possible is the correct way to raise them.
This second position is one I'd disagree with, and I've sat down and thought about why I disagree.
Childhood play is the thing that creates us as adults. It's the point in life when (theoretically, anyway) we can discover how the world works in a safe environment, taking controlled risks of action and idea and playing with concepts. Children are born as blank slates; to a child there's no more reason that a man with a 64" waist can't hop down your chimney and steal mince pies than there is for the internal comustion engine to work and part of human development is working out where the dividing line between two places is: those places being What Is, and What Is Not.
For a long time in the development of the childs mind, those places are the same place and they become separate through experience and play. I'd argue that it's healthier for children to learn as much as possible for themselves where that dividing line is, because that dividing line is, to my mind, an important place. Between What Is and What Is Not lies a very blurry division which I'll call What Might Be.
As an example, Orville and Wilbur Wright apparently spent their childhoods drawing flying machines, and it's interesting to wonder if their parents ever took them aside to tell them that people actually couldn't fly but they should continue playing their little game anyway. I suspect that if their parents ever had said that, then they'd've been proven right in the long run.
In the long term, having a well-developed sense of (and a particularly blurry line of) what Might Be seems to be a good thing; the most of the most psychologically well-adjusted and successful in their chosen vocations people I've met tend to have had a childlike sense of wonder and imagination. This leads to what irritating self-help books call 'Outside the box' thinking. I think it's much more likely that a child who thinks it's possible for a jovial fellow to fly in a sleigh without evidence will as an adult will be more likely to think that the lines of a box are there only as guidelines rather than rules.
It's not just me who thinks that, either. There's a lot of empirical evidence that such thinking is really good for you - Carl Gustav Jung once observed that he'd never seen any psychological problem fully cured without the patient regaining that sense of wonder at life and developing a wider sense of What Might Be (or words to that effect). Compared to Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind ("What children need is facts"), I know who I'd rather listen to.
I might be wrong about all of this, but in the unlikely event that I ever breed I'll be telling my children that a fat man dispenses gifts with a liberal hand, Rabbits bring chocolate eggs, and there will be an elf behind every tree in the woods and a mermaid behind every rock at the seaside, and I'll let them figure out I'm bullshitting them all by themselves.
But after all this rambling, what do you think?
[Poll #1102042]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:36 am (UTC)I was raised to believe that my parents bought the presents, sent them to Santa and then he delivered them, and that this is what ALL parents had to do.
I personally think this is the way to do it - they get the wonderful fantasy of Santa and, at the same time, get the reality of what Mummy and Daddy can actually afford and don't start expecting Santa to majic an extra £1000 for their present supply.
If I have kids, when they get old enough, they'll be told how much can be spent and they can work out their priorities themselves... No Wii AND ipod in the same year for my little darlings!
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:32 am (UTC)That little 'lie' lasted me for about 6 years :o)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:38 am (UTC)JmC
Childish things
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 10:59 am (UTC)JmC
But your idea has merit too
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:23 am (UTC)I do keep wondering when he's going to pay me for all the subcontracting I do. I mean, I've been working on his behalf, stuffing stockings for other family members, since I was in my teens. There's got to be some kind of reimbursement coming soon...
You're in for a nasty shock
Date: 2007-12-07 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:32 am (UTC)I agree completely that everyone (not just children) need a well-developed sense of wonder and "what might be"... but I think there is a whole universe out there chock-full of wonder and mystery and STUFF and things to learn & explore & we'll never get to the end of it...
Put against all that, a guy in a red suit is kind of mundane.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 11:41 am (UTC)The implication from the psychiatric evidence is that some form of spiritualism and belief in something external to the normal rules of the universe is very good for people at an emotional and psychiatric health level.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:07 pm (UTC)Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:09 pm (UTC)"I waste him with my crossbow."
Re: Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:38 pm (UTC)Some fantasy. More like hell.
Re: Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:39 pm (UTC)Re: Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:41 pm (UTC)Re: Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:45 pm (UTC)Re: Live Action Eastenders
Date: 2007-12-07 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:24 pm (UTC)My one big regret in life is that I told my best childhood friend, who was a year younger than I was, that Sinterklaas (the Dutch version of Santa) didn't exist. She died of leukemia aged 10, and I still feel awful for not letting her have that sense of wonder for one more year, when she had so few left.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 01:45 pm (UTC)Everyone knows the Mecha-Dawkins lives in a deep dark pit surrounded by his genetic experiments.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 04:39 pm (UTC)2. You remind me of how I figured out Santa Claus wasn't real. Basically, my parents ended up using some giftwrapping paper that had been stored in plain sight for months - so receiving gifts in that paper gave me irrevokable suspicions.
In hindsight, I really liked how my parents did that unveiling (intentional or otherwise). It gave me a great sense of worth in having dissolved the mystery of Santa myself. :-)
3. Relating to both comments - just as children need or create these crutches, they also need to cast them aside over time. Ultimately then, it isn't a YES/NO question, but tools/steps in a process of maturation. So, what that says about egoist childless adults participating in these fantasies, or the Japanese in general, I dare not say. ;-)
A relevant link, comrade
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 07:04 pm (UTC)Quickly and comfortably to purchase medical facilities!!
Date: 2007-12-08 03:50 pm (UTC)People here recently searched a lot of different medications.. (Esgic Plus,Tadalafil, Valtrex, Evecare, Fioricet, Zyban)
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Re: Quickly and comfortably to purchase medical facilities!!
Date: 2007-12-09 01:39 am (UTC)Re: Quickly and comfortably to purchase medical facilities!!
Date: 2007-12-10 10:00 am (UTC)But I suppose it would be better than purchasing them slowly and uncomfortably.
Stranger than fiction
Date: 2007-12-10 10:33 am (UTC)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Q5OW2IREFMMKPQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2007/12/10/do1002.xml