I promise this post is more than just an excuse to show off a picture of my new granddaughter, Charlotte “Charlie” Grace. But she is pretty cute, don’t you think?!
Just as cute has been the way her two big brothers, Keagan (4) and Hudson (2), have taken to her already, loving to hold her, kiss her head, and tell her how pretty she looks!
This past Sunday the boys came over to play at my home so their mom (my daughter, Angela) and Charlie could have a chance to relax and recover from the recent C-section, which was just one week ago!
It was then that I noticed something different about the boys’ behavior: they weren’t playing with the baby doll that had fascinated them the past month or so.
Of course, it isn’t unusual for boys not to play with a doll. Yet they had played with it so intently only just a week ago, taking it with them to every room in my house, that I wondered why they were now so disinterested in it.
Then the obvious hit me: Charlie had been born; they no longer needed the doll to pretend and practice with – they had the real thing now.
What my grandsons exhibited is one of the most common traits of children’s behavior: to learn by mimicking.
For months they watched mommy’s tummy grow and heard all about their baby sister whom they would get to meet soon. When the two of them found a very realistic looking baby doll in my house, they adopted her as a surrogate Charlie. They took the baby on walks in the stroller, practiced holding it, and took turns lavishing brotherly love on this inanimate object, brought to life through the imaginations of this tender pair.
That is, until the real Charlie showed up, cuter, softer, and more lovable than the doll could ever be. And the boys really do shower her with affection and love!
Just as one week ago when I took them up to the hospital on Sunday morning when Charlie was born and they both immediately got up on the bed and got their faces inches from hers and studied it for some time.
All morning they kept their eyes on her, watching everything she did, including nursing with mommy. They couldn’t get enough of the whole scene. Baby Charlie was real!
My son, Chris, displayed something similar when I was pregnant with Angela. Every night he slept with a giant shirt on so he could stuff pillows inside it to mimic my own projecting belly. It was too precious for words. And it worked: Chris loved Angela from day one and has never ceased.
What amazes me in all this is that no one told these children to do any of this. We did not prod them or make them pose for pictures. They did this all on their own. Just as they decided on their own that the doll was no longer necessary.
What an amazing lesson for life. And for dealing with children.
Instinctively, they desire to learn through playing and mimicry. Yet intuitively they know that learning from real objects and real experiences as big brothers is a more valuable tool.
This balance between “made up” worlds and the real one is quite interesting to ponder. Musicians “hear” music that first only exists in their heads. Inventors create tools that did not exist before. Teachers craft lessons they’ve never seen or heard themselves.
The creative power of human beings is extraordinary, and it starts in childhood, where imaginative play not only teaches and prepares but simultaneously excites and delights all involved, from the doers to the observers.
The “real thing” always comes and replaces the dream, but its arrival is all the more wonderful and satisfying because of the pretend play that preceded it.
©Miracle of the Mind of the Child by Jody Capehart
