Encouraging your child to have a rich inner world

[BonsoirAnna]

I have always tried to encourage my DD to have an "inner world" (for want of a better word) by letting her find her own entertainment (using whatever she would like that is available around her) rather than structuring her play.

As a result, at 4.4, she makes a lot of mess can amuse herself for hours on her own, talks to herself a lot and is great on imaginative play. Her very favourite playmate is her first cousin, my sister's daughter, who is very much on the same wavelength and the two little girls can play together for days without interference or entertainment from adults.

Sadly, my niece lives in another country so the two little girls don't see one another that often.

The upbringing my DD has is, however, very different from most of the children around us and she isn't on the same wavelength as the children in her class at school.

How have you developed your children's inner world? Are parents/children around you on the same wavelength or not?

BonsoirAnna I was going to reply. But realised I didn't fully understand you. My son 4 yrs is an only child. He does play for short periods on his own but prefers other people. I think we are lucky that his friends are happy to play pretend until the cows come home. But that isn't an inner world I thinks it means being on your own to discover the world. Please explain?

By "inner world" I mean the ideas and thoughts and feelings and conversations that you have with yourself that help you construct your own view of the world, as opposed to a view of the world that other people have taught you.

Do you mean the children in her class at school always need adult involvement?

Even when they are playing with your DD who sounds like she is brimming with ideas.

OSOTC - most of the children in DD's class need constant entertainment, yes, and like either being entertained by an adult or being in a big group.

My DD would rather play a long and complex imaginative game with one other very involved child.

Bring her over here! Ds is not in school yet.
He goes to nursery. But most of his playmates are a rag tag lot taken from different parts of our world e.g ex-neighbours kids who are older, friends children, friends who moved from nursery last year. Just explore your world and see what you come up with.

Well on a good day, when they don't squabble too much, our DCs can play together without adult intervention for a couple of hours or so. But then DS will need to stop pretending and go and build something.
It's the same with their cousins (both French and English)

But they also like to play imaginative games with me following their lead but after about 30 minutes I have to go and empty the washing machine for my own sanity.

But their friends, who I hear play like this alone, tend to require more adult involvement when they are visiting us. So perhaps it's to do with being in a house where you don't feel at home?

Surely it depends on the personality of the child? I have one who can entertain himself for hours and another who benefits from more adult stimulation.

OSOTC - actually, this thread is a follow-on from a meeting we had with DD's teacher at school this morning who wanted to raise the issue with us because she wanted to understand what was behind it. So it isn't the difference between being at home or being in someone else's home.

SobranieCocktail I agree. Mine can't play on his own for hours and it would be fair.
BUT when we've stayed over with friends who have 3 girls various ages. He gets cross with us for even walking into the same room as them. He can play with them all day without seeing an adult. Soon we will be able to pack them off with sandwiches and ginger beer and not see them until tea time.

Agree with OSOTC, it may be that the other children are just off their home ground. DS's main occupation at the moment, when left to himself is sellotaping stuff to other stuff and then inventing a use for it. Or building elaborate lego structures with a lot of incomprehensible dialogue/narrative to go with them.

He doesn't do it at other people's because he knows he's not allowed. He doesn't do it when other children come to ours because they seem to be essentially solitary activities for him.

My main aim in developing DS's inner world (which is something I think about a lot) is to provide lots and lots and lots of stories and also lots and lots and lots of toys etc. as raw materials, and then try to give him space to use those ideas and things. I also try to take him to lots of places (e.g. parks and woodland) where he can roam around and have a bit of freedom, but that is proving rather more difficult at the moment. I'm hoping this will come with age and more maturity.

Well I think some children are like this, and some are not tbh. Some children - like some adults - have lots of imagination and are happy playing like that, and some just don't. I don't think it is something you can create in your child - you might be able to foster it or encourage it, but if you don't have an imaginative child, then you don't. I doubt it's anything to do with the way you have brought her up tbh, she just sees the world that way, and enjoys playing that way.

Two of mine are like this, one is not. I was surprised when mine got older, how few children carry on playing imaginative games, but then I realized that they do, just in different and subtle ways. DS2 was the most like this - I think he used to not play with others that much when he was in infants because they didn't play or enter the world in the way he wanted to. Now at 9 he plays with other children lots - and his rich inner world is still there, but he makes comics, makes films, writes stories, makes up songs and daydreams.

It'll all come good, she might find one or two to play this way - and they are gold dust, these children find each other ime - or she'll adapt and play other games with other children. It doesn't mean she will lose her own inner world though.

It's called benign neglect vs hyperparenting, imo.

I think it is partly a personality thing. I see this with two sisters we know. Also DS has a big imagination but likes to make and draw as well as pretend, whereas DD prefers to pretend for a long time.

But I agree that parents always providing stimulation can end up stultifying imagination.

Anna, did the teacher notice something different about your DD? Or was it a class meeting where she wanted to understand why some of the children in her class play differently?

This was a one-on-one meeting with me, DP and DD. The teacher has been doing these meetings recently for all the children in the class. The teacher has no academic concerns at all but says that DD seems a bit bored by her classmates.

DD also does the drawing and making things on her own - she can spend hours and hours drawing things, colouring them in and cutting them out. We have lots small brightly coloured paper castles, flowers, animals, dresses etc etc floating around!

I am all for benign neglect. After all, the child's inner world by definition is something they have to develop, you can't do it for them. But you can leave them alone for long enough to give it a chance, and I think that's a good thing to do.

Having said that, some children are naturally sociable and thrive on going around in a gang. Ds is like this and I wouldn't want to change him, just because I was more of a solitary dreamer myself. We're both good! Different but good.

Excellent! That sounds like my kind of parenting. Leaving them to their own devices

Yes, in that case my children have a deep and intricate inner world

I agree with Cory that there's not alot you can do to foster this inner world apart from leaving them to themselves.

Does your DD seem happy? Or does she miss having playmates like her cousin?

BonsoirAnna I have to agree with someone else that I think a lot of what you describe is down to personality and temperament - whether you are socially outward-looking or more introverted. My DS1 sounds a lot like your DC. DS2 also has a rich inner life, but much prefers to explore this through playing with a lot of people (or when younger, with me).

Your DD sounds lovely, but I don't think we as parents have as much influence over this as we think we have! I think that we often are following their lead rather than the other way round.

Just realised ahundredtimes has said pretty much what I wanted to!

BTW, I am aware that the term "introverted" has negative connotations. I did not intend to use it in this way.

BonsoirAnna. I think that from what you have said about your meeting with the teacher, you have interpreted her comments as a criticism of DD.

None of this matters unless DD is unhappy, IMO

Oh gosh no, it wasn't any sort of criticism.

I don't actually agree with the theory that it is all down to personality. My DP has two children from his first marriage and he and his ex-wife brought up the boys in the same way as the people around them: constant routine, structure and entertainment. Leaving a child to its own devices was "bad parenting" in that milieu. With the result that the children grew up extremely dependent on other people to occupy them. I have weaned DP off that, and the boys have been weaned in turn, but it has taken a lot of time.

And DD is not an introvert - not at all. Extraversion versus introversion is something else.

I imagine there would be some cultural differences, actually. Children in this country (unless from lazy families) have a far more structured life than Swedish children, so I am constantly having to get my head around this. But at the same time, I think people also have different personalities.

I agree that it is largely down to personality. Ds1 would quite happily occupy himself for hours. He is perfectly happy to have one special friend. Ds2 actively seeks company, seems to know lots of children throughout his school and is happiest when he's in a large group.

LOL cory I find children's lives here in Paris way more structured than the lives of the children I know in England! I agree that cultural differences abound in that area. My sister's (primary aged) children in Amsterdam play outside with friends on their bikes for hours and have lots of freedom.