When it comes to pretend play, infants perform interactional patterns with elements of pretense a lot earlier than previously believed. Researchers say pretend play should be considered an interpersonal feature of cognitive development, and not an end product.
Pretend Play Should Be Studied in Children From a Younger Age — Neuroscience News
When it comes to pretend play, infants perform interactional patterns with elements of pretense a lot earlier than previously believed. Researchers say pretend play should be considered an interpersonal feature of cognitive development, and not an end product.
Pretend Play Should Be Studied in Children From a Younger Age — Neuroscience News
It was me, who got, shattered, like you, had, I just, didn’t know it then, but I know it now…
It was me, who got shattered, like you, had, and, you broke into, millions of bits and pieces, and, scattered your broken self, across my mind. It was me, who got shattered, like you had, I just, didn’t know it then, I didn’t know, that I was, going to be like you, the victim of our, angers.
It was me, who got shattered, like you, had, and I know it now, and, I’m so sorry, for how you’d, “died” back when I was too young to even realize. It was me, who got shattered, like you had, only, I shattered inside, while you’d, shattered, on the, out, and, as soon as you hit the marble floor, I knew, it was, too late, to save you.
Oh how I’d, cried, over you (did I now, can’t remember!), you were prettier than my other, porcelain, and, the thoughts of, had I only, thrown HER, instead of you, you would be, “alive” still, crawled into my mind.
But it was, too late, you’d already, “died”, at my childhood, hand, there was nothing I can do, but to, mourn for my loss of you, and of my own self too……………
The lesson this father learned, from his baby daughter, who is in her, Queen Elsa stage of life, translated…
I have a four-year-old daughter who loved nothing but skirts, but, in her preschool, for the kids to stay easily managed, and having the agility to do the class activities, the preschool told the students that they can’t wear skirts or dresses to classes, and so, on the weekends and holidays, she’d, made up for it, putting on the skirts, the dresses, to satisfy her own desires of being dolled up like a princess.
Since we received the preowned princess dress from a friend, she’d, found that hidden princess side of her self, even though, she’d not seen any Disney princess films, but through the social networking in her school, she’d become, the master of “Frozen” by Disney, “let it go” became her overly used phrase, and on the weekends, she’d insisted, on becoming Elsa the queen, with that crown on her head, a magic wand in her hand, then, she would allow us to take her out, she’d, put her heart, her soul, her being into this, as a father to her, and a film director, I don’t know how to react to it, and realized, just how, powerful an influence the movie industry has on the people.
I wrecked my mind, do I, allow my daughter to exercise her own free imagination, or to restrict her, to set a right kind of value system for her to follow?
little girls, dressing themselves up as princesses
This semester, I’d started teaching a master class, “Writing Scripts for Young Children”, I’d set up the discussion times with my students on the matter of “children” from before. First, understand the minds of the young children? How the children’s thought processes worked? How do they express themselves? How to get along, communicate, then lastly, what we want to, give to the children? This order is quite vital, but in the Asian culture, stressing raising outstanding children, we only cared about what we’re, feeding to the children, how to make them absorb what we’re giving to them, to make sure they learned the lessons quickly, and all of the lessons we have to teach all at once? As for the children’s thoughts, or feelings………we’d ignored, wait until they’re older, then, we tailor to that.
On the weekend, I took my young daughter, dressed up as Queen Elsa to Costco to shop, because of how she’d stood out, the ladies working at the sample tables, and demonstrating the new products all came to say hello.
“Hi, princess”.
“Princess, you are, beautiful!”
“What are you looking to buy today, princess?”
“Are you Princess Elsa? I saw your movie once!”
All the way, my daughter was very conversational with everybody who’d greeted her, it’s her dad who felt, embarrassed, and boy oh boy, am I glad, that I’d put my mask on.
“Does it bother you, or make you uncomfortable, that you’re getting, everybody’s, attention?”, I’d asked my daughter.
“no.”, she’d responded.
“So, you enjoy all the attention then?” I’d inquired.
“Sure, because they’re giving me compliments, affirming me.”, she’d told me.
Actually, this child of mine, had suppressed her feelings from when she was a young child, refused to express herself, and we’d had to guess what’s on her mind a lot. It took my wife and I a ton of time, and worked hard with her, for her to finally express her own emotions, to tell her thoughts to us, and now, the results are finally, apparent.
Before we give to the children, and teach them things, we must first, know what they’re thinking, how they’re, feeling; understand, empathize, allowing them to tell us, give the children their own means of expression, to valid what they experience, this is, the core value of writing for children.
Letting the children be themselves, versus training them to be someone else we expect them to become, this is a huge matter for not just the parents, but also, a must-learn lesson for everybody in this world. I’m too grateful to my princess, teaching her father, the “king”, to learn this, important lesson.
So, the adults learned something from the children here, because there is, a lot to learn from your own kids, but, mostly, you @#$%ING (maxed out!) adults think, that we’re older, therefore, we know more than you do kid, and, we will silence you, because you got nothing important to say, after, we are older, AND wiser, having lived longer.
And yet, there are, a ton of things, that the adults should be learning from their own young, not the other way around, children are, born wise, and then, they grow up, become, stupid adults.
The second part from the last one, translated…
More than once, I’d been asked, if it’s possible, are you willing to return to the past? My instincts were: would it be the me who was with the memories of my own pasts that’s gone back? Or the me, with ALL the memories erased? And, my asking the person who’d asked me this question would always displeased them, s/he would feel that I’m really boring, that it’s only a careless question, why take things so seriously?
Hmmm, this, is one of my biggest problems, why must I be so serious.
I really don’t know how to use my imaginative world, and give myself an escape and a chance to relax, my fantasy are often the extensions of my reality, it’d allowed me to see my possibilities of keep living. To me, fantasy is similar to the combinations of getting lost, making things up, professions, along with getting tied down, the summation of all of these. Why do I get lost so easily? Because I’m too careless with the directions in my reality; is it a confession or a made up statement, it doesn’t bother me at all, because even IF something is made up, in the end, it’d still become a part of my real-life experiences; getting tied up is causing people pain because the spider web of reality is hard to get out of totally, for instance, how you can’t turn back the hands of time.
The daydreaming type of fantasy thoughts, I really lack, my fantasy would eventually become the equations of my life, I’d often taken imaginations into reality, for instance, when I sing karaoke, for every song, I’d treated it like I’m performing on stage, haha!
And not all the fantasies would make people relaxed and happy, when and how the fantasies appeared is beyond my control. My mother being tortured by cancer until the end of her life, I’d still see that moment that broke my heart even now. One year, I saw my own reflection in a mirror, when I was in a daze, and I saw the image of my own mother who’d fallen ill, and this weird instance became the inspiration for one of my novels. Returning to the past? Maybe, this question had caught me off guard, so that, was why I’d answered it so seriously? Or maybe, because I have yet to come across this “obstacle” in my own life path, so I couldn’t give an answer.
Koreeda Hirokazu is one of my favorite director in recent years, when I’d discovered, that before he became famous, I’d already viewed his movies in the American Art Theaters, other than being surprisingly shocked, there’s that sense of destiny also, it’s just that the titles were all translated into English, so I didn’t know that it was his. Afterlife, the Chinese title was, “Next Stop, Heaven”. It’s how Hirokazu imagined a world after death, upon entering heaven, the deceased have seven days to find the moment of her/his life that’s the most unforgettable, to allow that single moment to come back again, so the deceased can remember it afterwards, and take that specific memory upon entry to heaven. When the souls that passed through had finally fulfilled this request, the male lead still stayed behind at the filming studio, he’d given up on his chance of entering heaven, because he refused to make this decision.
When I’d watched this at age thirty-something, I’d kept mumbling to myself, if it was me, I still couldn’t manage to think of, or to choose………back then, I thought that this was an amazing idea, that it’d pointed out the subjectivity of memories, other than seeing it as a fact, it’s rather more like a dreamlike imagined movie. But, when I’d realized that the same director made the films of “Nobody Knows”, “Still Walking”, along with other realistic films, I was shocked even more. The core of fantasy is that day after day, ordinary living after all!
We’d all lived through our whole lives, using a sort of fantasy. The reality is all too scary, it’s more of a nightmare. People all spoke of fighting for the weak, to resolve their differences, to find out the truths, and, aren’t all of these, merely, subjective assumptions, and, these, are the MOST weird of all, aren’t they?
And so, we still live in this reality, made up of our own separate fantasies, and that is due to the differences of the environment (the NURTURE???), and, how we deal with the things in the environment (nature) is what makes into WHO we are.
Mirroring the World 
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