People have a few types of sensory systems. We can observe the world and analyze situations from the perspective of visual perception (using vision), by ear (with the help of hearing), olfactorily (using our senses of taste and smell), or with tactile perception (by touch and with the help of nerve endings).
It’s very important for a child to develop all of these sensory systems. A child’s visual perception is affected by the world around them. We’re not just talking about babies here, who are only a couple of weeks old, but also infants, preschoolers and elementary school kids, all of whom are influenced by many factors.
One traditional example of this is watching television shows, cartoons or movies. Your child’s development, behavior and general perception of the world all depend on which particular films they watch.
However, you should note that television can be as vivid as possible, colorfully and musically transmitting images and characters, but it can’t always convincingly teach kindness (in either fairytales or edifying stories), since the images are already prepared for the child.
Where do cartoon characters come from?
Of course, they are drawn or animated in film studios by professional artists and animators. But they are first portrayed in scripts or books written by authors. None of us, adults or children, know exactly where the heroes and heroines of these make-believe stories come from or who creates them.
What about the Gray Wolf with his cunning nature? What did he and Little Red Riding Hood look like? Every person, be they young or old, imagines the characters in their own way. It’s long been proven that there are no identical people in the world, so there is no uniform perception. Each of us lives in a world of our own dreams and special conceptions.
And then what?
A child who is watching a cartoon or film sees the appearance and personality of a character that has already been established. The picture has already been drawn by another person, carried through their imagination and own understanding of this particular character or story. There is nothing left for your child to do but ingest this image, created by some other person.
How can you develop your child’s own imagination and enrich their inner world? How do you help them think, invent and fantasize? Don’t limit yourself to watching movies and kids’ television shows. But also don’t get hung up on just reading encyclopedias and clever books. A fulfilled person is a well-rounded person.
One great tool for developing a child’s own worldview and imagination is audiobooks. Perhaps you’re part of the generation that still remembers wonderful folktales and stories recorded on vinyl records. You could listen to them for hours, mesmerized and frozen in one position. Maybe you remember “Russian Folktales,” “Junior and Karlson,” “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils” and many more.
What can you develop using audio books?
First of all, audiobooks develop a child’s fantasy. They aren’t chock full of ready-made images or pictures foreign to a child’s thinking, but rather trigger the child’s imagination to come up with their own. When a child hears, “The princess was as beautiful as day,” or “The knight was as strong as oak,” they immediately put together the character in their imagination, like a puzzle or mosaic. And it is this image that is in the proper sense created by your child – this is their image alone, not the imprint of someone else’s.
In addition, audiobooks help develop diligence, attentiveness and the ability to listen to the end. Just remember the stories from the compilation, “Russian Folktales,” including, “The Magic Apple,” “Frost Ivanovich” and “Prince Ivan and the Gray Wolf.” Your child will be no less interested in the tales by the famous Russian writer included in the compilation, “School Library: Pushkin’s Fairytales,” which contains the fairytales by A.S. Pushkin that youngsters love best.
Don’t deprive your child of the pleasure of creating great new pictures in their heads! Give your son or daughter the wondrous and irreplaceable world of fantasy, and take a trip into the fantastical worlds of children!