I have an anxious five year old. I'm not sure when the anxiety started exactly, but I can't help but wonder if the pandemic starting when she was two years old didn't play a significant role. In our attempt to help her anxiety around TV shows and movies in particular (she gets very anxious and asks us to turn off the program if there is anything remotely embarrassing or conflicting occurring), we often say things like "It's not real, it's okay because this isn't really happening." I think by doing this so often, we've inadvertently removed some of the magic from her childhood. Maybe that's a silly thing to worry about, and maybe not, but I've started to look for ways to make things more magical.
Yesterday, we went to a theme park, and encountered two of her favorite characters (aka, people dressed up as her favorite characters in larger than life full body costumes making them seem like giant versions of her favorite cartoons). At first, she decided she did not want to meet them. But her three year old sister wanted to meet them. So my three year old and I waited in line, and just as we were about to meet the characters, my five year old changed her mind. It was so precious! They hugged, high-fived, and let us take an abundance of pictures. She seemed extremely happy and I was so happy for the opportunity.
Last night as we were winding down and getting her into bed, we had our usual nightly chat. I asked her what her favorite part of the day was. She said going to the theme park and meeting her favorite characters, but then she paused and said "Yeah, but weren't those just people dressed up in costumes?" and I just froze. I wasn't sure what my next steps were going to be, but I said "What do you think?" She got a little frustrated and said "No, mom, I want you to tell me!" So I paused and took a deep breath. Was I really going to strip yet another magical moment from her childhood? But instead, I said something that I think satisfied both my desire to keep her childhood magical and her desire to have a complete response that was fun.
I said, "Sometimes more than one thing can be true at once. Places like <theme park> and Disney World are magical places. They're places where things can transform and magical, wonderful, things can happen; however, you have to believe in those things in order for them to happen. Kind of like how we know when we watch a movie that the actors are just actors, but the moment we're watching the movie they transform into those characters. It's called suspension of disbelief. So our inclination might be to disbelieve (or not believe) in something, but for a short period of time, we can choose to believe in the magic, which makes it more fun. So while the characters we met today may or may not have started out as people in costumes, when we're in a magical place, we choose to suspend our disbelief and that transforms them into those characters." me, pausing..."That was a whole lot of information I just put your way, does that make sense or do you need more?"
Thoughtfully, she paused herself and said "That makes sense."
"So do you think you actually met <character> and <character>?"
"Yes, yes I did" she said smiling.
"So just remember, more than one thing can be true at once, and we can also choose to suspend our disbelief to participate in the fun and magic of the places we visit."
She nodded and rolled over to go to sleep.
So maybe I didn't 100% put magic into the day, but hopefully with her analytical brain, I was able to make things a little more magical for her. Sometimes, I'm just so surprised by the things she asks me that I don't have a way to explain them in the moment. Sometimes I say "You know honey, I'm just not prepared to talk to you about this right now. Do you think you could ask me another time?" and she almost always says yes. But I'm pleased with the way this conversation went.
I'm also just blown away at the way she considered everything, and even asking about the characters just being people in costumes. I think when I was older than her age I might have thought the characters at theme parks were odd, but I don't think it would have occurred to me that they were just people in costumes. She's so smart, and has such an interesting way of looking at the world. I simply want to enable her to have a fun and magical childhood. I want to let her be a child as long as possible, while still fostering her incredibly creative yet analytical mind. I know I don't always get it right, but yesterday was a good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment