For those of you who might not know, I started contributing to Parentous.com {an Indian parenting blog by blogadda.com} a while back. I have written two posts for them which were straight from the heart and touched on topics I really feel a lot about. I just realized that I have not shared these posts with you all here. So I will be sharing the posts here too from now on.

I have been at this parenting thing for more than 3 years now but a lot of it is still a maze to me around which I am trying to find my way around. Whenever I feel that I have figured out this job more or less, my little dynamite throws down a new gauntlet and I feel a greenhorn parent again.

My first post dealt with raising a dreamer child. A Child who lives her life surrounded by imagination, fantasy and dreams. Do read and let me know your thoughts.

Dream my child, dream

I was sitting in front of Sam’s Preschool teacher who had been telling me how friendly, helpful, pleasant and charming my three year old daughter was. But even though my heart was swollen from pride and my eyes moist with happy tears, I could feel that the teacher was hesitating about what she was going to tell me next. With a little trepidation I asked her what was wrong, she smiled and said “Nothing important but I just wanted to let you know that sometimes during class she just goes away into her own world, making up stories and talking about fantasy worlds and creatures.”

I broke into laughter and the teacher was at ease again. I assured her this was completely normal for her and she was like this at home too. I requested her to let Sam have her space when she was in what we call her “zone”. Yes, I raise a dreamer and happily so!! 

In our house it is not uncommon to find Sam pack her bags filling it with clothes, toys and other stuff preparing for an imaginary trip to Disneyland. She can often be found sitting staring at the vacant space completely oblivious to what you are saying while her mind is full of exciting plans and ideas. Every fairy tale that I read to her has a Sam version complete with sub-plots, new characters, exciting endings and new themes. She makes up stories at the drop of a hat complete with melodramatic dialogues, animated actions and crazy scripts. It is not strange for us to hear“Mumma, I am going out to the garden to practice my flying”. Yes, flying is one of her favourite pastimes!!

Conventional wisdom has a lot of labels for dreamer children like “lost in their own world”, “head in the clouds” and “disconnected from the real world”. It hurts me that we tend to give such negative connotations to these creative, imaginative and sensitive kids. Yes, they are loud, dramatic, easily distracted and even moody but they are also intently observant, perceptive and incredibly charming.