The Conscious Parent

room, I found her humming contentedly to her dolls.
Imaginative by nature, children are able to respond to the as is with
body, soul, and spirit. Our children only need an empty room, their
imagination, and a willing partner-in-crime. They don’t need expensive
gadgets and a room full of toys, just their creativity born of their still
center. Once they are in touch with their center, they learn to be happy
with whatever they have, realizing that contentment arises not from the
outside but from what’s within.
Watch any young child and you will marvel at their ability to make
something out of nothing—their ability to turn an empty room into a
canvass for their fantasies and transform the most ordinary of moments
into the most magical. I wait with my daughter by the bus stop and
within no time she is playing shop, selling wares to her imaginary
customers. Me, I am fretting and fuming, wondering when the bus will
ever come, unable to imagine any other reality besides my own anxiety-
ridden state. I go with my daughter to buy vegetables, in a hurry over
which ones to choose, eager to get in and get out. She, on the other hand,
is delighted to touch each one. “This tomato is round like my cheeks,”
she shrieks, “and this eggplant is shaped like my tears.” I look at her
amazed. How can she see nothing but potential, when all I see is fatigue
and hassle?
Our children at this stage are true pioneers, sculptors, singers, actors,
playwrights, hairstylists, fashion designers, and race car drivers. They
are potters, chefs, gardeners, painters, and scientists. They inhabit entire
worlds within them. What happens to this creative potential once they hit
middle school? Where does this unrestricted, kinetic burst of magic