A Child's Mind
Dreams and Fantasies, Wishes and Hopes
As Kate Douglas Wiggin once said, "Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility." This quote really is the epitome of what I believe. Children are the truth-tellers, the care-free dreamers and the hope of the future. Without children, the whole world would be a boring place without imagination and playfulness. Their minds do not think like adults, for they have not yet learned some of the lessons that must be learned to earn the maturity of an adult. But then again, what actually takes place inside a child's mind? We teach them how to provide for themselves and how to act in public. And, in return, they teach us how to relive our childhood imaginations. A child's mind can simply never be discovered, only studied. For if we as a society, or at least certain people in society, were to break into that precious vault, their innocence and imagination would be lost forever. We would let them become adults too quickly and they would be forced to leave their dreams behind and live in a harsh unforgiving reality.
There are dreamers of all ages. But everyone knows that most of the dreaming and wishing upon shooting stars happens when you are a child. Innocent beliefs and thoughts. As children we are all told to believe in magic and there is always a happily ever after waiting for the princess. But over time, this vision of the future is turned upside-down or at least altered. However there is always someone at every age who keeps on dreaming. Keeping that fire of child-like wonder inside of us it what gives us all different consciences and minds. Nobody dreams exactly the same dream, right? A child's dream can only be as creative as the environment they grow up in. If a child is constantly being put down or told not to dream by an authority figure, how can they go on having a creative, wide imagination? What kind of people will they grow up to be?
Ray Bradbury's story The Veldt, shows exactly what could happen to a child if such deprivation of imagination in present in their life. In so many horror movies, we see children's sweet innocence and delicate imagination become twisted with contempt, all play-time games gone. What has led the children to this dark place, you might ask? In The Veldt, the children had a nursery that changed to whatever place they simply thought of. They had lately been thinking of an African Veldt, when their parents become worried and disturbed. Soon the nursery becomes a dangerous place and they parents are forced to lock the nursery. The children are thrown into a hysterical fit until their father agrees to unlock it for a moment, but only until they leave the animatronic house for good. The tinkering music playing in your head as you read, your heart pounding in anticipation and snap! It's over in the blink of an eye. A tiny move was fatal for the two parents. But the children act as if nothing had ever happened when a friend of the parents, who is strangely enough a psychologist, comes to help the family leave the house.
There were signs from the children that a storm was brewing. Some of these were the children's constant lying and disobedience to their parents. I believe the biggest was the fact that the children refused to make eye contact with their parents. When you make eye contact with someone, you are acknowledging their presence and relationship you have with
the person. But these children become robots, life-less objects unable to feel emotions toward real objects of affection. The children felt the need to protect their nursery because it was giving them the love and care and, oddly, the attention that their parents wouldn't. They were in control of their minds in the veldt and soon took control of their lives outside of the nursery. Their parents had become complete strangers in their minds. They also know that they could never recreate their nursery if they left so that is why they couldn't leave. They needed to protect what they loved. A child so disturbed as to kill their parents to protect a plain room cannot be accepted as neither sane nor innocent in society or into the heart of any person who is sane themselves.
So the question is: how do we raise the future generations of children to have colorful imaginations, the love and compassion for the world and other people and the obedience society requires? The answer is a tricky one. We simply draw the lines. Teach them and help them up when they stumble. We teach them facts and equations, and life-lessons; things that can't be taught but experienced. We teach them how to love, laugh and live. We teach them how to be children who run and play and are care-free. And in time we also teach them how to grow up and become the teachers of others. There are only so many things we can teach a child. But some they must learn for themselves.