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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Crispin. And we wanted to celebrate International

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Speaker 1: Children's Day, that is June one, and to do that

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Speaker 1: to celebrate children, we wanted to take a look at imagination.

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Speaker 1: And I realized that seems like a big nebulous topic,

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Speaker 1: and you're so right, it is. If you try to

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Speaker 1: research imagination hypothetically, if you're trying to research it for

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Speaker 1: anything like a podcast, there is a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: out there. Something that I was really hoping to find

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Speaker 1: in our research was why when you're a kid, does

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Speaker 1: everything seem so amazing, like so big and awesome, like

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Speaker 1: awesome in the mount every sense of the word awesome,

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Speaker 1: not just like awesome, Like why does everything seems so

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Speaker 1: full of life, so full of color? And around the

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Speaker 1: time you hit puberty, you're like, everything is awful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's not just hormones. But before we get into

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Speaker 1: the psychology and the science of children's imagination, because there

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Speaker 1: really is a lot of fascinating stuff to talk about,

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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Caroline, my favorite part of all

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Speaker 1: of this research was the immediate chain of emails that

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Speaker 1: you and I started bouncing off each other as soon

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Speaker 1: as we You just mentioned imagination, and it was late

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Speaker 1: in the afternoon, so I think we were probably both

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Speaker 1: a little bit brain fried, and we just got swept

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Speaker 1: away into this revelry of our child Our own childhood

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Speaker 1: imaginations for me, instantly reminded me of being in this

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Speaker 1: antique wardrobe that my parents had in our basement when

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I was a huge fan

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Speaker 1: of the Chronicles of Narnia and Caroline. I can't tell

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Speaker 1: you how many times I stood in that wardrobe just

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Speaker 1: waiting to see if I was going to be able

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Speaker 1: to cross through the other side. Like I knew. Part

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Speaker 1: of me knew it was really foolish. Part of me

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Speaker 1: knew it was never going to happen, but there was

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Speaker 1: still enough of me that thought, you know what, it could,

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Speaker 1: Maybe it could. Yeah, I um, I mean there there's

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Speaker 1: so many examples of me just you know, being a kid.

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Speaker 1: But I was a big Barbie player. I feel like

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Speaker 1: I've talked about this before, but I was hugely into

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Speaker 1: creating these worlds and adventures for my Barbie dolls, and

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Speaker 1: it was so real and they were they were real

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Speaker 1: and they were having these relationships and doing these things,

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Speaker 1: and Skipper was going to a party, um, and and

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Speaker 1: Kiro was swimming in the pool. That's really my sink um.

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Speaker 1: Kira had a great bathing suit. By the way, I'm

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Speaker 1: just like remembering all these also that I had that

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Speaker 1: I loved. But um, I I distinctly remember that that

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Speaker 1: utter like joy and that super deep mental involvement in

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Speaker 1: imagining that those relationships. I just remember that just completely

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Speaker 1: petering out as puberty approached and being like, well, this

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Speaker 1: is really this is what am I? What am I doing?

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Speaker 1: I could go like play outside to read a book

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, that sensation of getting completely lost in

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Speaker 1: an imaginary world when you're a child, where hours are

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Speaker 1: just I mean they just evaporate because you're so involved

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Speaker 1: in creating not only just building up this world but

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Speaker 1: then living in it. I also remember there would be

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Speaker 1: days when I would wake up excited because I knew

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Speaker 1: I had a lot of playtime that day and I

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Speaker 1: had already kind of built up maybe a world in

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Speaker 1: my playroom, and I was gonna just gonna go straight there.

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Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna have a great time because

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Speaker 1: no one could stop me. Literally, no one could stop

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Speaker 1: me except for whatever villains that I would make up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I would create these own little worlds for myself,

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Speaker 1: separate from the barbies. You know. I would play like

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Speaker 1: chocolate Factory in the backyard, which is really just making

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Speaker 1: mud pies in my sandbox toys. And uh. We had

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Speaker 1: a room over the garage that was unfinished, and my

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Speaker 1: parents just stored a lot of junk up there, a

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Speaker 1: lot of my brothers junk from college. And so I

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Speaker 1: would go up there and like turn it into an apartment,

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Speaker 1: you know, so much fun. And I would like stack things.

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Speaker 1: And my brother had this like giant old eighties boom box,

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Speaker 1: and I would like turn it on and be rocking

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Speaker 1: out up there, and I'd sweep and I'd draw with

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Speaker 1: chalk on the plywood, and I was like, this is

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Speaker 1: my apartment. I'm an independent woman. Yeah. I had a

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Speaker 1: fort that I built with my sister that I very

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Speaker 1: much enjoyed tidying up, which I think was a precursor

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Speaker 1: to my dishwasher um o c du nous as an adult.

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Speaker 1: So while I would honestly love to spend the next

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Speaker 1: half hour just telling you every thing that I pretended

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Speaker 1: to be as a kid. Let's talk about the origins

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Speaker 1: of investigation into childhood imagination. Who first started thinking, hey, kids,

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Speaker 1: kids have those cookie brains right? Well, you you have

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Speaker 1: to think about it first in the context of winded

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Speaker 1: childhood emerge, because it's not like childhood was always protected

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Speaker 1: and valued as a sacred time of learning and growth. No,

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Speaker 1: children and their little fingers were sent to the factories

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Speaker 1: to like scoop things out of looms and whatever, you know,

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Speaker 1: child labor, etcetera, etcetera, with the industrial Revolution. But then

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Speaker 1: you do start to have people who are like, no,

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Speaker 1: if we want them to be amazing members of society

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Speaker 1: when they grow up, they deserve to have this playtime,

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Speaker 1: to have this innocence where they can learn and be safe.

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Speaker 1: I just like condensed so much history and about two sentences.

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Speaker 1: But as with a lot of things in psychology, a

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Speaker 1: lot of this does go back to Freud. Freud sometimes

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Speaker 1: the pipe is just a pipe. Okay, yes this is true,

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Speaker 1: but anyway, my fort was just a force. It was

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Speaker 1: just a FOURT that boom box was anyway. Anyway, Freud

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Speaker 1: talks about how we all, all of us, not just children,

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Speaker 1: have two different modes of thinking. But what's interesting is

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Speaker 1: that he called our primary processes that was our dream life,

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Speaker 1: in the secondary processes were our waking thought. You would

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Speaker 1: almost think it would be the other way around. And

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Speaker 1: he recognized that children did know the difference between reality

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Speaker 1: and fantasy. It's not that, for instance, I literally thought

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Speaker 1: that my you know, attic play place was my own apartment,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't try to sleep there. I didn't try

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Speaker 1: to eat the chocolate pie which was really mud because

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Speaker 1: you mud, but um. He says that they do know

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Speaker 1: the difference, but that they absolutely need play. And so

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Speaker 1: Freud talks about how, look, kids take their play very seriously.

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Speaker 1: It's not something that they consider to be frivolous. They

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Speaker 1: it's like their livelihood. Like parents go to work, kids

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Speaker 1: go play. And he talks about how they expend large

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Speaker 1: amounts of emotion on it. And he so the opposite

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Speaker 1: of play is not what is serious, but what is real.

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Speaker 1: So he goes on to say he likes to link

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Speaker 1: his imagine objects and situations to the tangible and visible

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Speaker 1: things of the real world. So obviously, in other words,

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Speaker 1: you have to know a thing or two about what's

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Speaker 1: around you and how things work. And how people relate

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Speaker 1: to each other to even begin to imagine and fantasize

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Speaker 1: about other possibilities. Now, the other person who comes up

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Speaker 1: in this conversation alongside Freud is psychologist Jane peg who

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Speaker 1: developed another sort of school of thought around children's imaginations,

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Speaker 1: and this was in the nineties and thirties, and PJA

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Speaker 1: argued that something called magical thinking dominated children's imaginations. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: it was a confusion around cause effect relation ships. So

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Speaker 1: PJ argued that children believe their thoughts or actions can

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Speaker 1: alter reality, that one object can influence another when there's

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Speaker 1: really no logical causal relationship present, which makes sense because

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Speaker 1: children simply don't know these logical causal relationships, and so

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Speaker 1: they're sort of using fantasy and imagination to help explain

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Speaker 1: the world around them. They just have the they just

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Speaker 1: don't have a logic down yet, right. And one example

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Speaker 1: given was like, obviously this wouldn't have been in PGA's time,

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Speaker 1: but if a child walks by a stoplight and the

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Speaker 1: stoplights suddenly turns green, they think, oh, well, because I

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Speaker 1: walked by it it turned green. I employ magical thinking

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Speaker 1: as a grown up when I yell at stop lights

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Speaker 1: like durn green, won't you already? And then it does.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, see see I get I bet you guys

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Speaker 1: are glad I'm at this stoplight. But imagination, though, is

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Speaker 1: more than fantasy, as more recent research has taught us,

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Speaker 1: actually homes our childhood understandings of reality, because unlike the

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Speaker 1: common line of thinking that well, imagination is just escapism,

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Speaker 1: it's just children trying to, you know, escape into other worlds,

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Speaker 1: whereas really it's sort of us sorting out this insane

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Speaker 1: new space around us. So um, what's What's also interesting

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Speaker 1: in this earlier history of the study of childhood imagination

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Speaker 1: is that, in addition to Freud and Peja in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, we also have a pair of ladies psychologists

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Speaker 1: who are influential as well in developing our modern ideas

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Speaker 1: about the function of imagination. Right Naomi nors Worthy and

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Speaker 1: Mary Theodora Whitley wrote The Psychology of Childhood, wherein they

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Speaker 1: describe in in very big general terms but also very

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Speaker 1: it's it's a gorgeously written thing from the twenties anyway,

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Speaker 1: where they describe children's imaginations. And they wrote that from

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Speaker 1: the ages of four to eight, stories and fairy tales

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Speaker 1: were critical that they allowed kids imaginations a workout and

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Speaker 1: that they absolutely filled a need. They wrote, the lack

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Speaker 1: of knowledge of physical laws and the ways of the world,

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Speaker 1: and the tendency towards animism make the material offered by

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Speaker 1: the myth and fairy tale not only acceptable but necessary

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Speaker 1: for a full growth. And so that's like what we've

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Speaker 1: been saying, that this imagination, all this fantasy, all this

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Speaker 1: imagining our barbies talking to each other is totally critical

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Speaker 1: in kids basically accidentally performing the scientific method, putting a

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Speaker 1: hypothesis or a theory out there about how things should work.

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Speaker 1: After viewing their parents doing things, or their siblings doing things,

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Speaker 1: or people the grocery store acting a certain way, they

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Speaker 1: sort of put it all into practice during their playtime

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Speaker 1: and using their imagination. Well, when you think about it

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Speaker 1: at it's very basic level, science and imagination have a

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Speaker 1: lot in common because science is all about coming up

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Speaker 1: with hypotheses and you know, thinking about what we don't

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Speaker 1: already know as fact, and then experimenting and experimenting until

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Speaker 1: you continue to fail or eventually succeed. It takes a

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Speaker 1: lot of imagination to be a scientist, and imagination as

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Speaker 1: I'm sure we're all very well aware. Starts so early.

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Speaker 1: Kids begin pretend play before they turn three, and the

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Speaker 1: time that we spend pretending peaks during the preschool years

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Speaker 1: and then decreases a little bit between five and eight

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Speaker 1: years old. Right. And during this same time, our belief

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Speaker 1: in our imaginary friends in Santa and other fantasy figures

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Speaker 1: peaks as well. So it's not that you're not playing. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: nine year olds still play, it's that it's that whole

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Speaker 1: pretend play, that imaginary friend type of things starts to decrease. Um.

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Speaker 1: In that same period, kids strongly believe in wishing from

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Speaker 1: three to six, This would I think tie into that

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Speaker 1: whole magical thinking thing. Um. But as they hit that's

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Speaker 1: six year old mark, that belief starts to diminish. They tend, though,

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Speaker 1: from then on, to see it as something that's a combination,

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Speaker 1: adorably of magic and mental ability and skill. So it's like, yes, okay,

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Speaker 1: I get that wishing isn't a thing that makes things

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Speaker 1: appear in front of me, Like I can't wish for

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Speaker 1: a sandwich and it suddenly appears in front of me,

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Speaker 1: God forbid. But maybe if I'm like really good at it,

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Speaker 1: and I wish really hard in the universe or God

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Speaker 1: or whoever like really hears me, then it can happen.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I still think like that sometimes. I know,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe if I just tell them how much

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Speaker 1: I want a sandwich delivered up, it does feel like magic.

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Speaker 1: Side note, when I walk into the break room and

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Speaker 1: there's a platter of surprise sandwiches or cupcakes, I know.

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Speaker 1: I love when meetings get out the food from meetings

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Speaker 1: is presented to the rest of the people. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: all this stuff about treating imagination as like kids using

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Speaker 1: the scientific method is are of a recent development. UM

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Speaker 1: researchers and child development experts are just starting to realize

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Speaker 1: how much of a role it plays in understanding reality.

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Speaker 1: And there was an article about this in the Wall

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Speaker 1: Street Journal back in two thousand nine that talks about

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Speaker 1: how imagination is necessary for learning about people and events

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Speaker 1: we don't directly experience. Think about history class, you weren't

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Speaker 1: around or I don't think you were in ancient Rome.

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Speaker 1: How are you ever supposed to figure out what that

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Speaker 1: was like? You take what you know, what your teacher

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Speaker 1: tells you, what your parents tell you, and you imagine

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Speaker 1: it and so for young kids, this allows them to

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Speaker 1: think about the future, like what they want to be

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Speaker 1: when they grow up. And Paul Harris, who's a development

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Speaker 1: psychologist and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education,

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Speaker 1: said the imagination is absolutely vital for contemplating reality, not

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Speaker 1: just for those things we take to be mere fantasy.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of mere fantasy, let's talk for a minute

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Speaker 1: about imaginary friends, because as an example of how fantasy

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Speaker 1: play helps kids, research suggests that preschool kids with imaginary

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Speaker 1: friends tend to be more creative, have greater social understanding,

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Speaker 1: and are better at taking the perspective of others. In

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Speaker 1: other words, creating this fake, invisible friend develops empathy within kids. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you you sort of work out your social problems this

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Speaker 1: friend that you can blame everything on. Well, and there's

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Speaker 1: more research too that's found that the more a kid

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Speaker 1: pretends and engages in fantasy play, the better their verbal

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Speaker 1: skills are too. Right, Yeah, and it's the same thing

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Speaker 1: because we did talk about this in our episode on

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Speaker 1: imaginary friends, and the same thing is true for like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know people who also play with dolls. So

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Speaker 1: because you're creating these worlds in your head. You're flexing

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Speaker 1: your creativity muscle, but you're also using your language skills,

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Speaker 1: and so as you learn more words and more vocab,

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Speaker 1: you're applying them to your pretend games. Yeah. And there

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Speaker 1: was psychologist who was talking about how the assumption is

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Speaker 1: that Sesame Street, for instance, is fantastic at developing kids

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Speaker 1: verbal capabilities because it always focuses on specific words, specific letters,

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Speaker 1: and sort of hammering home through repetition these very basic

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Speaker 1: building blocks of speech. But in fact, what's even better

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Speaker 1: than Sesame Street is playing with big bird on your

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Speaker 1: own or or it doesn't have to be a big bird,

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Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Um. And in addition to

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Speaker 1: things like the verbal skills, when you encourage imagination and kids, again,

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Speaker 1: research goes on to find that it helps them develop

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Speaker 1: those social skills, boost their self confidence, boost intellectual growth.

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Speaker 1: It's the beginning really of abstract thought. And it also

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Speaker 1: this was one that really jumped out to me, it

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Speaker 1: helps kids sort of manage their fears. Yeah, and um,

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Speaker 1: if we're talking, you know, beyond if we're going beyond

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Speaker 1: imagining friends, just talking about fantasy and pretend play in general.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the examples are heights for instance, if

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Speaker 1: you had a tree house and you were allowed to

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Speaker 1: play in this big tree house. And this is something

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about a little bit later. For we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, our overprotective parents affecting imagination. But kids who

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Speaker 1: got to play up high in tree houses or whatever,

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Speaker 1: when they grow up, it's sort of like they're desensitized

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Speaker 1: to it, and so their fear of heights is a

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Speaker 1: lot less. Or you know, if you're like me and

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Speaker 1: your dad built you like a treehouse play for a

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Speaker 1: thing that also included swings, you would have worked out

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Speaker 1: your fear of falling off those swings by falling off

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Speaker 1: the swings and landing in the gravel and being like, man,

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Speaker 1: I'm never doing that again. See I'm the opposite. I

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Speaker 1: have a pretty strong fear of heights and just in general,

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Speaker 1: a fear of hurting myself. And we didn't have a

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Speaker 1: treehouse growing up. We had a climbing tree, but it

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Speaker 1: had this one it went into a be It was

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Speaker 1: like a y shaped tree, and so there was we

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Speaker 1: had this little plank of wood in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the y, and but I was always so scared to

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Speaker 1: even climb up there. And I don't know if it

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Speaker 1: was because my mom always told me to be careful,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to hurt yourself. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: I got too many of those kinds of messages, or

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'm just a fraidy cat. Well, let's be clear.

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Speaker 1: My treehouse was way different from the neighbor boys treehouse,

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Speaker 1: which was like a death trap, because mine wasn't literally

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Speaker 1: a treehouse. It was like this huge structure that my

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Speaker 1: dad built. It was like a fort on top and

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Speaker 1: a standbock sandbox on the bottom, and these like really

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Speaker 1: scary I don't know what kind of boards they were,

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Speaker 1: but they were the square cube kind of long birth

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Speaker 1: but anyway, basically my leg could go through it and

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Speaker 1: I could like slice the entire front of my shin off.

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Speaker 1: But at least I had steps. My neighbor's tree house

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Speaker 1: was literally a treehouse where you had like climb part

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Speaker 1: of a tree and then climb these rickety boards that

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Speaker 1: they just nailed into the trunk. And I ended up

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Speaker 1: there one day and I was stuck because I was

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Speaker 1: terrified to come down. I was like, I'm gonna hurt

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Speaker 1: myself and hurt myself, So are you scared of heights now?

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Speaker 1: Middling middleish, probably less than I am. Like I'm not.

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Speaker 1: I can go up high and be fine, but I'm

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Speaker 1: more afraid of falling to my death. But actually, yeah,

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Speaker 1: But speaking of kids coping with stress, as we mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: there used to be there there. There's a common line

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Speaker 1: of thought that, oh, well, imagination is just children's escapism

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Speaker 1: from terrible surroundings, but it's not necessarily a coping mechanism

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Speaker 1: for kids. Yeah. Psychology professor Alison gopnik Um, who focuses

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Speaker 1: on children's development, wrote in Slate in two thousand five

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Speaker 1: that happy, healthy children are, if anything, more likely to

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Speaker 1: be immersed in a world of fantastic daydreams public or private,

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Speaker 1: than unhappy were troubled children, which goes to the previous

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Speaker 1: traditional line of thinking that, uh, fantasy and imagination are

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Speaker 1: therapeutic and it's used as an escape to work out

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Speaker 1: their problems, and it's not necessarily that they are electing

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Speaker 1: fantasy over reality. What we we tend to forget as adults,

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Speaker 1: even though we were once kids, is that kids can distinguish,

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Speaker 1: usually between real and pretend. They're essentially just little sponges

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Speaker 1: learning about life. I mean, they're they're inherently designed to learn,

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Speaker 1: and so play and fantasy again is part of this

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Speaker 1: protected period of childhood that allows kids to learn vital

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Speaker 1: survival skills in a safer environment. And so you often

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Speaker 1: have these comparisons of childhood imagination and fantasy play with

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Speaker 1: dog and wolf pups play fighting, which is the cutest

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Speaker 1: analogy possible. Yeah, I mean, like I grew up with

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Speaker 1: with two little puppy sisters who would play fight all

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Speaker 1: the time. And and and that's common in in animals. You

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Speaker 1: you play fight, and you learn how to chase, and

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Speaker 1: you learn how to go after food and foes, so

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Speaker 1: that when you're actually a big grown up dog or

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Speaker 1: wolf or whatever and you're out in the wild, um,

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Speaker 1: that you know how to act and behave. And it's

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Speaker 1: not really that different among human children. And I just wonder,

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Speaker 1: like side note, I just wonder if it is that

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Speaker 1: whole like sponge like thing about kids and their brains

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Speaker 1: being designed to learn really taking shape during this age.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if that's why everything seems so awesome. Probably

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Speaker 1: it's just like running through a sprinkler seems magical, or

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Speaker 1: you know what I'm you know, So I just wonder

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Speaker 1: if it's your brain being in its early stages of

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Speaker 1: growth and spongy and whatever. But anyway, it's that whole

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Speaker 1: thing that these kids kids are little theorists. They're learning

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Speaker 1: how to explain the world or around us, and they're

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Speaker 1: not constrained by the whole little issue of possibility, what's

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Speaker 1: possible and what's probable like adults are like, I know

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Speaker 1: what's possible and what's not, so my imagination maybe doesn't

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Speaker 1: roam as far as a child who doesn't have any

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Speaker 1: of those constraints. Well, one thing I wanted to look at, too,

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Speaker 1: was whether or not there are gender differences in this

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Speaker 1: kind in our sponge brains and how we use them

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Speaker 1: to pretend. And uh, it's actually not that revelatory because

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Speaker 1: essentially boys and girls are equally likely to engage in

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Speaker 1: this quote unquote fantasy play, as academics call it, but

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Speaker 1: there are some gender differences do or socialized gender differences

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Speaker 1: do emerge. There was one study called the Reality of

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Speaker 1: Pretend Play, Ethnic socioeconomic and gender variations in young children's involvement,

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Speaker 1: and it found really no differences by stan ethnicity or

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Speaker 1: socio economic levels, but there were a couple of gender

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Speaker 1: variations that jumped out which were that girls tend to

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Speaker 1: engage in more gender stereotypical activities and boys tend to

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Speaker 1: go for more occupation related pretend So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: girls like to play mother bride going grocery shopping, whereas

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Speaker 1: boys are likelier to play say fireman or uh, tax auditor.

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Speaker 1: Just kidding, no one plays tax auditor. No offense to

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Speaker 1: the tax auditors listening. I played teacher, Oh I did.

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Speaker 1: I did a little bit of teacher. I definitely did

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Speaker 1: some nurse and some mom and also glamorous woman about

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Speaker 1: to go on a date. That was when I started

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Speaker 1: getting a little bit older. Did you see your older

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Speaker 1: sisters like? No, honestly that I can tell you. One

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Speaker 1: was from watching uh AMC when it was in its

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Speaker 1: pre Madmen and Walking Dead days, and it was all

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Speaker 1: classic movies with like Marilyn Monroe et cetera getting dressed

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Speaker 1: up to go out on the town. And those were

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Speaker 1: the those were the starlets that I looked up to,

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Speaker 1: where the women who went to like the Cabana Club

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Speaker 1: in a gown on a Friday night to meet a doctor.

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Speaker 1: So it's funny that I do what I do now. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, podcasting is glamorous. It is glamorous, especially a

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Speaker 1: feminist podcast. Um Oh, But one quick though side note

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Speaker 1: in terms of imaginary friends and gender differences, Marjorie Taylor,

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Speaker 1: who is a psychology professor at University of Oregon, found

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Speaker 1: that girls are likelier to create imaginary companions, but boys

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Speaker 1: are likelier to simply pretend to be characters. So, in

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Speaker 1: other words, the the example that she gives is that

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Speaker 1: a boy will just pretend that he's Batman, whereas a

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Speaker 1: girl would pretend that Batman is her friend. Interesting, and

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Speaker 1: they think that it ties into how girls also engage

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Speaker 1: in socialized play a little bit younger ages than boys.

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Speaker 1: We want to play with somebody, whereas boys tend to

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Speaker 1: engage in solitary play for a little bit longer than

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Speaker 1: girls do. So just a couple of gendered insights to

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Speaker 1: toss into this imagination talk. Well, we have to take

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Speaker 1: a quick break, but after we come back, I want

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about how kids imaginations are

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Speaker 1: different from adults. So we'll be right back. So we

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Speaker 1: spent a lot of time talking about kids and kids,

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Speaker 1: fantasy play, and some gender differences. But how do kids

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Speaker 1: imaginations differ from adults? Because even though perhaps the brilliance

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Speaker 1: and shimmer of our childhood imagination fades with time and puberty,

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Speaker 1: we still engage in magical thinking as adults. Yeah, going

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Speaker 1: back to NYA me Norsworthy and Mary Whitley back in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, they wrote early on that kids imaginations

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Speaker 1: do differ in the kind, number, and vividness of images,

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Speaker 1: and so this is really the only mention in all

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Speaker 1: of our research I came across that really specified the

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Speaker 1: vividness of imagination and the vividness of how the world

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Speaker 1: appears around them. And they write that kids imagery is

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Speaker 1: so intense that sometimes they can't tell the difference between

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Speaker 1: imagination and memory, which of course made me pause, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, how would I know? Because I have

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Speaker 1: these imaginary things, but like, I don't remember. If I don't,

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Speaker 1: I just don't know. How do you know? I don't know?

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Speaker 1: But anyway, they write that kids lacked the definite criteria

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Speaker 1: by which to judge either the actuality of occurrences or

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Speaker 1: the possibility of their fancies, and that kids start to

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Speaker 1: lose their more fanciful imagery around the ages of ten

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Speaker 1: to thirteen, when it becomes more practical, more like adult,

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Speaker 1: and that right there is probably the primary difference between

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Speaker 1: adult imagination versus childhood imagination is that perhaps it loses

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Speaker 1: the vividness because we have the logic, we understand, hopefully

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Speaker 1: how the world works in a more fundamental and basic level. Yeah,

429
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: and and maybe there's no need in our brains driving

430
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: us anymore to pick up those Barbie dolls and imagine

431
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: that they are in fact in Malibu with with palm

432
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: trees all around them, and they're in their pink jeep. Instead,

433
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: we just daydream that we ourselves are in Malibu. We

434
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: sort of transfer it onto off of our dolls and

435
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:42,719
Speaker 1: onto our own selves while we're sitting in our cubicles

436
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 1: imagining being on the beach all the time. Um. But

437
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: one major name in child psychology, especially in terms of

438
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: imagination is Jacqueline Wooly. She's a professor at u T Austin,

439
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: and she has done a lot of studies in recent

440
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: years on kids imaginations and on their fantasy play and

441
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: on their various beliefs in magical characters. And one study

442
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 1: that I thought was so interesting was talking to kids

443
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 1: about Santa, the tooth Fairy, and the garbage Man. Basically

444
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:16,199
Speaker 1: to illustrate. They were trying to figure out at what

445
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: point Because you don't really see the garbage man, John Garbageman,

446
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: John Garbageman, you don't see him necessarily ride up to

447
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: your house and take the garbage away. It's just gone.

448
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 1: The garbage is just gone. Same with Santa. You don't

449
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: see him, but you wake up on Christmas morning and

450
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: you have presents and the cookies are gone. There's evidence.

451
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: Evidence is the key in children, as Willie says, believing

452
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: in these fantasy characters because like I, for instance, oh

453
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: my god, did I believe in the Easter Bunny so hard?

454
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: Because so like I was getting to an age where

455
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: I was starting to question things, and I was like,

456
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: does the Easter Bunny really exist? And we went to

457
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: church on Easter morning and like, none of the chocolate

458
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: was out, none of the eggs had been put out,

459
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 1: And when we came back from church, Jesus had left it.

460
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: All the candy was out. And I was like, you guys,

461
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: the Easter Bunny is real. Here's all this evidence, which

462
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: is adorable when I think about my younger self. But

463
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: but how did I get there? Caroline? You know, I

464
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: still don't know, And I bet I bet you a

465
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: million dollars of someone else's money that if I asked

466
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: my parents, they'd be like, I don't remember that it

467
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: was it was the Garbageman. Um. And so she talks

468
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: about how it's it's seven. Age seven is around the

469
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: age where kids stop being quite as easily misled by

470
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: adults persuasive words. So it's your dad convincing you that

471
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: there's Santa, or your mom convincing you that there's the

472
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: Easter Bunny and leaving that evidence, because even the tooth

473
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: Fairy leaves money. Um. But there is a division to

474
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: like a subdivision where they're more likely to believe in

475
00:28:55,760 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 1: Santa because there's proof versus dragons or fairies, where kids

476
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: kind of grasp that those are fantasy figures that they

477
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: get to daydream about but that they won't necessarily meet well.

478
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: And some other research that Willie and her students have

479
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: done also found that five year olds in particular don't

480
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: really understand the difference between what makes something impossible versus improbable.

481
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: So they told a little girl that once upon a

482
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: time there was another girl and she jumped up into

483
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: the sky and she never came back. And they asked

484
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: whether or not that was possible, and she said, no,

485
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: that's completely impossible, because why would anyone want to jump

486
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: into the sky and never see the clouds again? Like

487
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: that was the reason why, because it would be foolish

488
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: to ever not want to see the clouds, right, have

489
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: foolish exactly, And I thought that was adorable to Yeah,

490
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: because because obviously that's the only reason. Um, but you

491
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: know there there's also links, uh of researchers looking in

492
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: imagination and then things like autism and also anxiety, because

493
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: while kids with autism don't necessarily play with toys or

494
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: with people like they're typically developing peers do, that doesn't

495
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: mean they lack imagination. Researchers looking at Asperger's in particular,

496
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: I found that kids with Asperger's still have a lot

497
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: of creativity. It's just more reality based. It's not necessarily

498
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: imaginative imaginative creativity. They gave them. This was a study

499
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Autism and Development Disorders from but

500
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: they basically presented all these kids with foam shapes, and

501
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: the neurotypical kids were able to come up with all

502
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: like sorts of things that this could be, whereas the

503
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: children with Asperger's. It was more cut and dry. They

504
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: didn't come up with quite as many examples as the

505
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: typically developing kids did. Yeah, but it is a bit

506
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: of a myth that autistic kids have no imagination. UM,

507
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: and that kind of started up in nineteen seventy nine

508
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: when autism researchers Laurena Wing and Judith Gould included lack

509
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: of imagination in early autism criteria. But then in a

510
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: two thousand ten interview with Laura Wing, she clarified that

511
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: it's more a deficit of social imagination, in other words,

512
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: having a hard time imagining other people's perspectives and feelings,

513
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: those kinds of things that kids develop via imaginary friends.

514
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: A lot of times, for instance, they have a hard

515
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: time with that and the empathy, the imagination required for empathy,

516
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: rather than just the imagination we might think of in

517
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: a more basic sense of playtime, drawing, imagining other worlds, etcetera.

518
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: And as far as the anxiety thing goes, UM, it's

519
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: interesting the links that have been drawn between kids with

520
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: anxiety and kids who have super active imaginations. UM. Robin

521
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: Alters a psychologist who focuses a lot on this. She

522
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: wrote the book Anxiety and the Gift of imagination. But

523
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: she talks about how she was seeing this girl in

524
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: her office who was having stomach aches. Her parents didn't

525
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,959
Speaker 1: know what was wrong. The girl was super anxious, and

526
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: as they were talking, it came out that she was

527
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: an artist and she loved to paint and draw and

528
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: put everything in these bright colors. And Alter asked her like,

529
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: do you think there's a link between your feelings, how

530
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,719
Speaker 1: you're anxious all the time and your imagination all of

531
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: these great vivid images you see all the time. And

532
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: the both of them were like, huh, did we just

533
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: have an epiphany together? Because Alter has drawn this link

534
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: between people or children with superactive imaginations where they just

535
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: feel that they are in this scenario, they're in this

536
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: situation and it just starts to feel so real and

537
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: so overwhelming. Well, and that sounds a lot like the

538
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: anxiety spiral that can happen where you start imagining all

539
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: of these events that have not occurred yet, you are

540
00:32:54,040 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: engaging in some terrifying fantasy play. When anxiety can you know,

541
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: really clamp down, like going to web m D. Yes, Caroline,

542
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: like going to the web m D symptom checker. It's

543
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: a terrible spot that's all I could think. Reading about

544
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: imagination and anxiety. I was like, Oh my god, I

545
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: just imagine all of this terrible stuff happening to me,

546
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: because then I'm like, oh, look I have a new mall.

547
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's cancer, you know, so I just

548
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: it's always cancer. But um. One thing that we we

549
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,719
Speaker 1: hinted at at the beginning of the podcast was the

550
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: idea of overprotective or helicopter parents limiting kids imagination and

551
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: their capacity for developing more fantasy play. Whether that is

552
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: in fact something that's going on. Yeah, because we know

553
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: more than we ever did before about childhood development and

554
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: what is good for kids. On top of that, we

555
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: have a lot of technology, the reign of television in

556
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: the home, and also, yes, this helicopter parenting where kids

557
00:33:55,240 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: today are often kept very busy and very safe. Very

558
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: good intention from these helicopter parents because they only want

559
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: their precious angels to grow up and become Harvard superstars

560
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: and and not you know, break bones and whatnot. But

561
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: that might not be leaving so much time for imagination

562
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,479
Speaker 1: like it used to. Right. There was a report from

563
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: the American Academy of Pediatrics in two thousand seven showing

564
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: that children were playing less, and so you know, the

565
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: Internet erupted with so many articles in different studies looking

566
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: at like structured play versus imaginative play. So, you know,

567
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: putting your kid in all those ballet classes, you know,

568
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: soccer games, like all of these different you know, math bowl,

569
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: whatever they participated in. That was good and it was

570
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: helping them socialize and make friends, but it wasn't necessarily

571
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 1: giving them enough time to have that independent, unstructured creativity

572
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: that comes with just playing by yourself. Nonetheless, a study

573
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: in two thousand well looking at this question of whether

574
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 1: or not we are essentially tamping down too much on

575
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 1: kids imaginations today. There was a two thousand twelve study

576
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: published in the Creativity Research Journal, and it was led

577
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: by Case Western Reserve University psychologists, and it was a

578
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: meta analysis of fourteen play studies from to two thousand

579
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: and eight, and they really didn't find any red flags

580
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: at all. They found that kids are still very comfortable

581
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: playing and engaging in imagination, and they also found that

582
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 1: kids today expressed less negative feelings in play. However, past

583
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: studies have linked negative feelings during play with creativity. Again,

584
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: is it that anxiety link? I don't know. Well, I

585
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 1: don't know if it's that or if it's that play

586
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: helps you work things out, Like you get so angry

587
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: at Ken for forgetting Barbie's birthday party, and then so

588
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: you work out those I don't know, or you fall down,

589
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: or you fall down skin your knee and you're like, man,

590
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: I'm angry because you know, when I did fall off

591
00:35:57,760 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: the swing that time, I had a pudding pop in

592
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: my hand, Like imagine little Caroline swinging on a swing

593
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: with a pudding pop in her hand, and when I

594
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: flew off the swing, I looked up and my pudding

595
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: pop had flown all the way across the playground and

596
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: hit the side of the house and it's just sliding

597
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: down the house. That's a negative feeling. I'm like by

598
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:19,839
Speaker 1: pudding pop. No, but these case Western researchers found that

599
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: kid's capacity to express a wide range of positive emotions,

600
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: to tell stories, and to organize their thoughts stayed consistent

601
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: over this whole time period. They did stress, however, despite

602
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: all the positives, they found how important it is to

603
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: make sure that you do give kids time for play

604
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: since it helps all those things, the emotional things, the

605
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: cognitive stuff that we talked about earlier well, and this

606
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: ties into all the conversation around whether or not TV

607
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 1: time or video game time is bad for kids imaginations.

608
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: If you PLoP a kid down in front of a television,

609
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 1: whether that is just sapping all of those potentially positive

610
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,399
Speaker 1: benefits of turning off the TV and sending the kid

611
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,359
Speaker 1: outside to build a ford or whatever, it might be

612
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: right because then, as one person put it, I can't

613
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: remember what article it was, but as one person put it,

614
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: when you PLoP your kid down and let the TV

615
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: be the babysitter, they can't be the hero of their

616
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: own story. They're enveloped in someone else's story. And you know,

617
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: while watching Peanuts when I was growing up was like

618
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: my favorite thing, you know, I by watching that all

619
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: the time, I wasn't doing something else like playing with

620
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: barbies or playing outside the treehouse. Yeah, and I've I've

621
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: noticed differences anecdotally speaking of kids that I know watch

622
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: a lot of television versus kids that don't watch as much.

623
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: And when you talk to a kid who watches a

624
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: lot of television, a lot of what you hear from

625
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: them is stuff that they watch on television, the jokes

626
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: that they have are jokes that they saw on say

627
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: the Disney Channel, compared to whatever kind of story they

628
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: might have been writing, or whatever adventure they might have

629
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: been off on on their own. I will say though,

630
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 1: that like the physical gags that were in all of

631
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:10,240
Speaker 1: the Warner Brothers cartoons, deeply influenced I still I still

632
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: definitely watched TV as a kid too. There's nothing I

633
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:17,480
Speaker 1: don't think there have been any studies saying that CHV absolutely,

634
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: you know, across the board, is bad for kids. It's

635
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: more just make sure parents that there's some free time

636
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 1: left in there right to to foster that creativity. But

637
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: even when you get out onto say the playground you've left,

638
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: there's no not a TV insight. You're taking your kid

639
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: to the park, You go to the playground. And one

640
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: big difference I think in our generation versus kids today

641
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: is that the playgrounds that we played on when we

642
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: were tykes were far more dangerous, so much rust than

643
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 1: the one so much rust uh, far more dangerous than

644
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: the ones today. And there's this idea too that that

645
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: kind of preoccupation with a kid's safety also has an

646
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: impact on imaginative play. Right. Hannah Rosen read about this

647
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: back in way back in March of this year for

648
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, Uh, talking about how you know, parents are

649
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: spending a lot more time statistically speaking with their kids,

650
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,800
Speaker 1: and they did back in the seventies. But the seventies

651
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: is also when you see this rise in lawsuits from

652
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: parents whose kids hurt themselves badly or who even died

653
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: in playground accidents. And there was even a report from

654
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: the government around this time that talked about thousands, tens

655
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 1: of thousands of kids going to the emergency room every

656
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: year because of playground accidents. And so you have this

657
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: general push by advocates, child safety advocates, which I mean,

658
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with being an advocate for child safety.

659
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,720
Speaker 1: Let it's a great cause, great cause, good shot guys.

660
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: But there was this huge push for playground playground regulations. Okay,

661
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: that sounds good, right. However, one of those guys who

662
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: was one of the original advocates behind this push for

663
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: you know, like the rubbery floor on the playgrounds, making

664
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: them all plastic and lower and don't get your head

665
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: caught in the bars and stuff, which I just thought

666
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: that was a rite of passage to get your head

667
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: stuck in the bars on the slide. But whatever eventually

668
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: got it out. But so one of the things one

669
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: of these original advocates says, hey, guys, um, we might

670
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: have actually gone too far now by expecting our children

671
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: to be protected from every single risk and assuming that

672
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: our kids are just fragile or dumb. And ironically, the

673
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: number of playground related emergency room visits has actually gone

674
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: up since nineteen eighty, although there are ten fewer fatal

675
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: injuries per year. But one of the reasons too that

676
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: kids might be going to the hospital even more despite

677
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 1: these safer playgrounds is that they're so soft and safe

678
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: that kids are a little bit more reckless. Right. So, um,

679
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: the place where we go up north and miss again.

680
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: Every summer, our playground that we had up there was awesome.

681
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: It was so awesome. But the slide was like to

682
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: me as a kid, it was like this huge towering

683
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: thing that was all like rusty and metal, and it

684
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: would get so hot in the summer sun and the

685
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: ground was just like maybe a thin layer of woodchips

686
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: like not even it was mostly gravel. So like you

687
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: knew you had to take care of yourself so as

688
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: not to fall and really really hurt yourself. So you

689
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: were more careful when you did fling yourself around on

690
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: that giant metal slide contraption. And so what that early

691
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: childhood education professor Ellen sand Setter was pointing out was

692
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 1: that we we almost need to encourage kids to participate

693
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: in not reckless play, but but more imaginative playground activities

694
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily super super safe because kids have to

695
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 1: learn how to keep themselves safe or super super supervised.

696
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: Yeah you know. I mean kids are pretty much always

697
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: is being watched right now. It's always expected that an

698
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: adult will be around. And this also reminded me, um, okay,

699
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: so one of the things that Hunter Rosen does in

700
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: this Atlantic piece is travel to Wales where there is

701
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: this free for all. Calling it a playground is a

702
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: misnomer almost. It's a it's a space for children outside

703
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,479
Speaker 1: that essentially looks like a junkyard and kids go there

704
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: no adults in sight, and it's just old mattresses and

705
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 1: there are hammers, and there's a river. And kids also

706
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: set fires all the time. They've set barrel fires, like

707
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: a little hobo was running around. And that reminded me

708
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: of researching for a stuff I've Never told you video

709
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 1: not too long ago. About fireplay and children, because in

710
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: the United States, a majority of the times that the

711
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 1: fire department is called or the houses burned down is

712
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: because kids set a fire, and an evolutionary psychologist says

713
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,759
Speaker 1: that the kids are naturally inclined to fireplay, and then

714
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:08,839
Speaker 1: more developing nations where they might not have things like

715
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: electricity or central heat. Kids are taught to use fire

716
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 1: from a very early age, and a child as young

717
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 1: as five years old can responsibly learn to set a fire.

718
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: But because kids are so you know, we're so fire

719
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: phobic in the US and so scared of kids being

720
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 1: around fire that our innate fire fascination is just drawn

721
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: out because it's this you know, survival skill that you know,

722
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: humans you would think are evolved to have, and so

723
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 1: we just keep playing with fire at an older and

724
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: older age, and so you have all of these twelve

725
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: year olds running around burning fires where they shouldn't be right,

726
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,280
Speaker 1: and Rosen also talks about this and maybe sand centered

727
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 1: as too, about the fact that when you release these

728
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 1: kids to be kids and to play in these conventional

729
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 1: play spaces and to explore and to splash through creeks

730
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: and whatnot, their um naughtiness level basically plummets because they're

731
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: able to just release that that kidness they're they're using

732
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: their imaginations, they're funneling all of their energy into something

733
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,959
Speaker 1: mentally productive for them. Whereas if you're keeping them safe,

734
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 1: if you're keeping them on all of these non stimulating

735
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: plastic playgrounds, they've got to get that like kidness out somehow,

736
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 1: And a lot of times it turns into bullying, it

737
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: turns into setting fires, it turns into stealing the neighbor

738
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: kids bike, very unproductive things. Yeah, so it's kind of

739
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: funny to see how the more we learn about childhood development,

740
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: the more we are almost clamping down in a negative way.

741
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: So I wonder, though, if we're gonna get to this point.

742
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: I feel like we are getting to a tipping point

743
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: where the helicopter parents are starting to you know, buzz

744
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: away a little bit and p apps. Modern parenthood is

745
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 1: relaxing its vice gript on it's precious children. Maybe, Like

746
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: I wonder this this whole article from Hannah Rose and

747
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 1: got me thinking about my own childhood. And and you know,

748
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: she talked to a lot of parents who said, oh, yeah,

749
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: I did some crazy stuff in my childhood. I would

750
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: never let my kids do that. I was so stupid.

751
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: I jumped off of things. I went, you know, blah

752
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 1: blah blah. But then I thought of some of the

753
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: things I did, and I guess did my parents just

754
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: assume I was safe just because I was with a friend.

755
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: I was wandering all over creation basically unsupervised with another

756
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: seven year old. You know, I was tramping through neighborhoods

757
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: in weird ways. Oh and this is another thing that

758
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,320
Speaker 1: that that Rosen talks about, as far as letting kids

759
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: find different routes to places. So my my best friend

760
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: and I would walk through my neighborhood, through somebody's backyard,

761
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: through the woods, out into this other neighborhood to get

762
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,720
Speaker 1: to that neighborhood's pool. So we found this like great

763
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 1: little exploration trail. It involved creeks, it involved turtles, it

764
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,840
Speaker 1: involved birds and other wildlife, and so we got to

765
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,359
Speaker 1: experience all this like feeling of independence when really I'm

766
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: sure I could make that walk in about ten minutes

767
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: as a grown up, but I think it was it

768
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,359
Speaker 1: was so important to let us Ali and me do that.

769
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 1: But you know, as a grown up, like would I

770
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: let my kids do that? I don't know. And I

771
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: think that's where the divide is. It's like, nostalgically, we

772
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: look back and we're like, oh, that was so great

773
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: that I did that. I was so imaginative and so independent,

774
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: but that was dangerous. I'm not going to let my

775
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: kids do that. Well, Caroline, I now want to read

776
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: a memoir of your childhood adventures, but I also want

777
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: to hear from other listeners too. I mean, what do

778
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: you if you're a parent, how do you let your

779
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: child's imagination roam free? And also what kind of imaginative

780
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:51,839
Speaker 1: adventures did you go on as well? And I want

781
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: to hear like, are we the only people Kristin and I?

782
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: Are we the only people who remember our childhood imaginations

783
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 1: and our perception of the world being so vivid, everything

784
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: being so magical, like going into wardrobes and thinking we're

785
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: gonna be trans transferred someone where magical. I wish I

786
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: had gotten through the other side. I'm not gonna lie.

787
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: Let us know though. Mom Stuff at how stuff works

788
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 1: dot Com is where you can email us. You can

789
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast and message us

790
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages to

791
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 1: share with you right now. About our podcast, the body

792
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 1: Shaming Epidemic, So I've got one here. From Whitney's subject line,

793
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 1: nearly punched a six year old kid. Well, not really,

794
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: but I wanted to, she writes, I just got done

795
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 1: listening to your fabulous episode on the body shaming Epidemic

796
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: and just had to relate my story regarding my four

797
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: year old daughter. My husband and I both work, and

798
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: I go to school full time as well, so our

799
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 1: daughter is in daycare during the week. She has a

800
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: lot of great buddies there, but there is this one

801
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,760
Speaker 1: mean little six year old boy that always gives her grief.

802
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: Who knows he probably has a crush on her, but

803
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 1: he's still just a little punk in my eyes. One day,

804
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: I picked my daughter up from daycare and she was

805
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: clearly distressed. It took a bit of prodding to discover

806
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: the source of her sadness, but I eventually found out

807
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: that this little boy had been calling her fat all day.

808
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: My daughter has always been a bit bigger and taller

809
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: than the average kid. Can someone say michelin, baby, but

810
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: it's adorable and most importantly healthy. Of course, I explained

811
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: that this was entirely inaccurate, and that she was a gorgeous,

812
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: healthy girl and should not worry about what other people say.

813
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: Needless to say, this is the closest I've ever come

814
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: to punching a little kid right in his face. It

815
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 1: baffles and saddens me that I should have to explain

816
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,319
Speaker 1: this crazy concept to my four year old. Both me

817
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,399
Speaker 1: and my husband make a point every day to tell

818
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: her how beautiful she is and hopes to build a

819
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: solid foundation for her confidence and self esteem. Hopefully this

820
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: will help her when she encounters the many mean little

821
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: punks throughout her life. So thanks with me. You can't

822
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 1: let the jerks win. Nope. Um okay. So I have

823
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: a letter here from Heather. She's a new listener. She says,

824
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: this fat shaming makes me think of my husband and

825
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: his seven sisters. He was sometimes described as being husky

826
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 1: by his mother, while many of the girls were fed

827
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: ice cream shakes to put extra weight on them. There's

828
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: been a lot of body image attention in the family,

829
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: and it's still happening for most of them as adults.

830
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: There's always a comment about the current status and weight

831
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,439
Speaker 1: stats of the siblings among their mom and each other.

832
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 1: My husband is very weight conscious and has trained himself

833
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: to live on two meals a day to stay slim,

834
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: since the weekend may involve extra meals with our family

835
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: or drinking a few beers. He recently commented about the

836
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: bellies of our boys, ages eight and ten, and I

837
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 1: didn't really put all this in perspective, but new fat

838
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: shaming would not be the way to go with our kids.

839
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,359
Speaker 1: We're all very active. My husband and I do road

840
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: in trail running races as well as triathlons. The boys

841
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: play soccer in baseball. I am trying to focus on

842
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: health and fitness, balanced diet, and minimal screen time. I'm

843
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: also a pediatrician, so I have to walk a careful

844
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 1: line at work when discussing weight with kids, I try

845
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,720
Speaker 1: to focus on health and lifestyle with them as well.

846
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: So thank you very much for your letter, Heather, and

847
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. We're glad to have you. Yeah,

848
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: and if you want to send us your thoughts on

849
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: imagination or anything else, Mom stuff at how stuff Works

850
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address, and to find all

851
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: the links to our social all of our podcast videos,

852
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 1: and blogs, please head on over to stuff Mom Never

853
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:22,360
Speaker 1: Told You dot com for more on this and thousands

854
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot com