Making Up Fantasy Stories With Your Children

I like nonsense – it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. - Dr. Seuss

Have you ever made up fantasy stories with your children?  My youngest son James had a close friend growing up.  Both of them were voracious readers.  Sometimes on Friday afternoons, I would pick them up from school and drive them to our home.  On the drive, they would be sitting in the back seat of the car.  One day, I heard them talking and giggling as I drove.  I asked them what was happening.  They said that they were making up stories.  One of them would think something up and the other one would follow up with something else and then the other person would add to it.  Back and forth it went and I can tell you, those stories were pure fantasy, bordering on the verge of being ridiculous to me.  But to those two boys, the stories were adventurous and hilarious.  I must admit that I truly enjoyed driving them.  I laughed along with them.  They were in elementary school at the time.

I didn’t make up stories with James, as I felt it was important for him to have a friend to make up stories with.  His imagination was being nurtured and he was having a good time too.  If he didn’t have a friend to create fantasy stories with, I would have stepped in.  What about your children?  Do they have friends who can help them make up stories?  If not, step in to be the nurturer of those “nonsense” stories, as Dr. Seuss would call them.   Who would ever have thought about writing a children’s book with a talking cat wearing a red and white stripped hat and a red bow tie?