Nadezhda S. (1) (ILE) about ideas

A child like this has lots of different ideas. If an adult doesn’t actually believe in some crazy idea the child has, they should at least pretend to believe. My parents reacted poorly to my crazy ideas. It hurt me because I knew it could actually be done, and it would be awesome, really cool. But they would say to me: “What are you talking about? That’s impossible, and anyway, it’s nonsense, grown-ups don’t do things like that. And you shouldn’t be doing this at all, it’s all rubbish, what you’re saying.” But you can see that it would be amazing, for example, to have an escalator from your house straight to the bus stop. You step on it—and you’re at the stop.

But you don’t realize that it’s not quite realistic. You shouldn’t crush a child’s dream or imagination harshly. You need to explain, for example: “If you build an escalator like that, you’ll have to clear it of snow, otherwise it won’t work, and you’ll have to protect it from thieves. Imagine how much work that escalator would be—think about it yourself!” The child will think: all that work, all that work, all that work… and I don’t really feel like doing it. I’ll just get to the stop without an escalator.

You shouldn’t disappoint a child or cut off the ends of their imagination; you shouldn’t tell them that they’re just talking nonsense. If they’re saying something silly, explain it to them, but don’t make the child feel foolish in front of themselves.