Creating Creative and Critical Thinking, a Struggle for All

Greensboro Batting Center facilities

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to share in something positive in my future stepson's life.  My fiance and I took him to the batting cages near my parents' house.  He had a blast!  For being in coach-pitch/T-ball, he did really well being in the slow-pitch baseball cage (balls traveling an average of 40-45 mph).  My fiance and I got to share something he loved with him and try and use it as a learning opportunity to better his ability.

When we got back to my parents' house, we continued to play with him, my sisters and parents participating as well.  The most beautiful thing is that the majority of the play occurred outside, without distraction from a television set or electronic materials.  But as with everyone, there are always hiccups in perhaps behavior during so much stimulation.  This did occur but I must say that the positive moments far outshone the negative.

It is a shame to think that some children in the world may not have the benefit of parents who want or are able to give them this kind of positive and creative interaction.  As in previous posts, some parents work multiple jobs to try and support their family.  When you are constantly working, you come home to find little time to spend with your family.  Maybe those parents come home only to creep into their children's rooms and kiss them goodnight, hoping that they can have more time to foster the mind tomorrow.  Tomorrow comes and goes and they find themselves with less time than before.

The saddest out of all these possibilities is a parent who does not even want to give a child any attention or positive interaction.  These are sometimes the parents who maybe had a child young or maybe their relationship didn't work out.  Perhaps the bills have piled up and the parent or parents do not see the time as important to spend with their child/children.  This is an unfortunate reality in society.  There are many children who go without that guidance that is so desperately needed in their life.  This guidance creates the differentiation between what is positive and good in life in comparison to what is negative and bad.  Without this guidance, children are left to their own devices to work this out and may decide the opposite of reality.

More often than not (and I have touched on this before), when we don't teach our children, we leave media to teach them for us.  When we leave media on too long, the lessons only get distorted and misleading.  Take for example video games.  Instead of children go outside and running from each other and imagining something to run from, they are content to run on a computer screen.  From this, the imagination is being starved and the body is being ignored.  While watching television with my future stepson, it is disturbing to think how much television has changed.  While there are some educational shows, a lot of the cartoons do not teach anything of value.  For example, I have seen shows that seem to teach that finding an easy way out is a good way out.

We want to teach our children, critical and creative thinking, problem solving and to use their imagination.  If we do not help our children develop these skills, they can experience difficulty in their future.  This is way both playing with others and learning to play by themselves is so important and vital.  I am grateful that I have two sisters that I could play with growing up and develop games with.  So do yourself a favor.  If you have children, play with them or help them learn to play.  Buy them items to craft with, develop dress up boxes (for boys too!), and play with your children, never forgetting to challenge them and yourself as well.  Teach them to enjoy life as you have come to enjoy it!

Increasing your Vision: A Growth of Self

What is your eyesight like?  Do you have to wear glasses?  What about contact lenses?  Do you ever struggle to see at night or when walking into the bright daylight from a dimly lit corridor?  Are you reflecting on your sight or vision?

When I looked "Vision" up in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, several types of definitions came up. Interestingly enough, the first two definitions do not relate at all to the sense.  They define to vision as, "something seen in a dream, trance or ecstasy," or, "the act or power of imagination."  So not only is vision related to the sense of sight, but also can be something that is not really there but imagined.

Today, in church, our pastor began to speak about this very topic (thus why I am writing about it now).  The sermon was entitled, "How is your vision?"  The overall point of his sermon was that you cannot reach a point in life without knowing where that point falls.  The next question may be how is that point determined?  I guess that depends entirely on how your Vision is.

In other words, you have to set your goals of growth in life, because no one will do it for you.  And once you achieve the first goals, you must set yourself higher goals.  Without somewhere to go in life, how can we propel forward?  Take, for example, a student who is graduating high school.  Perhaps they have set a goal to complete college.  In college, there are several sub-goals: passing courses, tests, the long nights of studying.  On that day when they walk across the stage, that goal is achieved.  They now have to decide what their next goal is.

Perhaps they will decide that they have had enough school and they want to go into the workplace.  Perhaps they want to further their education and go onto a Master's program.  We cannot move forward in life without knowing where we have come from and, more importantly, where we are going.  Certainly, sometimes we struggle to determine what path we should go down.  Especially in our youth, that is to be expected.  It is a part of learning what our Vision is.

Like everything in life, Vision of life, growth and future is something that is ever changing and ever evolving.  Today, my Vision for my life is much different from when I was in, say, 3rd grade!  Especially when, in 3rd grade, I was planning on becoming a nun.  But that is the beauty of childhood and having supportive adults to surround those children.  Children, you see, have very blurry Vision.  They daydream and change constantly what they "want to be when they grow up."  The beauty of this is they are free to explore the possibilities while the adults can help wrangle those energies in.

We all play a crucial part in one another's Visions.  We must all support one another because we cannot reach our Visions by ourselves.  Many pitfalls befall across our paths.  However, with Faith and the people around us supporting who we are and where we are going, we can never fall short of our goals or our Visions.  Afterall, we set our Visions and goals, but we all need help to achieve them.