The Geriatric Mom Podcast with Dr. Nefertiti B. Poyner

I'm Going to the Grammys! And Why Your Child Should Go Too!

• Nefertiti Poyner • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Ever wondered why children are so captivated by make-believe worlds and fanciful characters? Is there more to it than simple child's play? Well, you're about to unravel the magical significance of imagination in children's growth and development. I’ll be sharing some relatable stories about playing make-believe office or attending metaphorical "Grammys" and the profound impact of such imaginative play on boosting creativity, problem-solving skills, empathy, and language development.

In our digital age, the enchanting world of pretend play often takes a backseat. However, it's essential to revive and cherish this treasure trove of imagination. Did you know that the character of Madea from Tyler Perry's movies and the scene from "The Pursuit of Happiness," where father and son use imagination to cope with homelessness, were all born in an imaginative mind? In this episode, we will talk all about it!

 Share this episode, leave comments, and send us emails. Your experiences and strategies for promoting pretend play are valuable, and we would love to hear from you. So, let's embark on this journey together and unlock the incredible power of imagination in shaping a child's future.

Pursuit of Happiness Clip:
https://youtu.be/dLwjEtY4uas?feature=shared

Maxine's Baby:
https://youtu.be/DjXlidHoPyU?feature=shared

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Speaker 1:

Five, four, three, two, one. Well, hello there, welcome back to the podcast. Can I say welcome back? Yes, welcome back means you've listened to at least one podcast. Yes, okay, okay, I'm just checking, and if this is your first time here, I am so excited that you are here. As you can tell by today's title, I'm going to the Grammys and your child should go to the Grammys too.

Speaker 1:

You might be wondering what we're talking about today. Well, we are actually talking about the importance of imagination. Imagination, and so, again, I welcome you to get comfortable, if you're listening to me on Apple podcast and hey, you might want to come over to YouTube and check us out and see all the goodness that you're missing. No, you don't even have to do that. Go, stay right there in your podcast. Man, that is fine. I also am broadcasting from YouTube for those who like a visual to go with your audio. This work is so important to me and so I will put it out there, and whatever medium I think will get to a listener.

Speaker 1:

Again, I was a teacher before I became a mom, and becoming a mom has really indicated for me just how never ending and sometimes difficult the job is, but, above all, so important, so important, and I decided that this was the time to do it, because I was, first of all, listen to God, that was, first of all, and then, second of all, just watching all of us come back from a post COVID life and wanting to get back to normal, and I like what Sonya Renee Taylor says. I don't want to get back to normal and want things to be better than they were before, and I hope the podcast that you're listening to today is going to help you get better. So, before we go any further, go ahead and do what you need to do. If you're listening to audio, press the follow button so you can make sure you will know when any new episodes drop, and if you're in YouTube land, you know what to do. Click the subscribe button and make sure you subscribe to my channel so we can we can stay friends, right? Mama's got to do this thing together, all right? So let's go, let's go, let's go. I'm going to the Grammys and why you want your child to go to the Grammys too.

Speaker 1:

So when I was a young person, I had a very rich imagination. I had a very rich imagination and I thought everybody did this. I thought everybody came home from school and pretended to be a teacher. I thought everybody lined up pieces of paper on their bed and pretended to be students. I thought everybody asked their mom to buy them an old calculator so that they could pretend they were a store clerk. I thought everybody saved that. You get where I'm going with this. I thought everybody did that. But let me tell you something I know now, retrospectively and again, in our podcast space I will always bring to you what I say in the research and I'm going to do it in a way that hopefully helps you. Just think about it until we can see each other again.

Speaker 1:

I was watching the movie what's it called? Maxine's Baby, I think it's called I'm the Tyler Perry documentary that's on right now. At the time of this recording. It's playing on Prime Video and I have always admired the character Medea and I know they're different, varying opinions about theater and being funny and, like I know, people have all the things that they say about the character. But when I learned where Tyler Perry drew that character from, I wanted to throw up my hands in like a hallelujah, because there is so much that happens in the life of a child that if we can protect them from it. They won't have to carry that stuff into their adult life.

Speaker 1:

Another movie that I watched was the Pursuit of Happiness, long, long time ago. Remember that movie and remember the scene when Will and the son are in the train station and that night they don't know where they're going. And so I want to pause for a second because if you're listening to me via audio you might be like who is Medea and who is Tyler Perry. So I'm going to put it in the show notes so I can make sure everybody is clear, and if I can do it, I'll also put the scene from the movie Pursuit of Happiness that I'm talking about. I'll put that in the show notes too.

Speaker 1:

But there's a scene in the Pursuit of Happiness movie where Will is a bit overwhelmed by everything he's got going on and he's been evicted from the hotel that he's staying in. He can't figure out what to do and his son is with him and he has this machine that he's trying to sell. And I just again want you to visualize this with me. He has this machine he's trying to sell and he senses his son's anxiety and so, out of nowhere, will says to his son you see it? And the son says see what he said the dinosaurs. His son looks at him like I don't see no dinosaurs. We're in a train station. Where the heck are we going? He don't say that, but that's what this face says. He says you see it, right there. There it is again, and out of nowhere. The son's like, yeah, see it. Duck dead, duck, duck, duck. And they do this Jurassic Park thing y'all. And then Will says you know what? I think we got to sleep in a cave tonight. I think we have to sleep in a cave. And the sun says where's the cave? And the cave is a bathroom and that is where in the movie Will, the character, will Smith and his son sleep on the bathroom floor and toilet paper is their pillow.

Speaker 1:

The reason why I went to the Grammys and why your child needs to go to the Grammys as well, is because, especially that age eight and under, there is a magical thing that can happen, and sometimes, again, people don't like the word magical, choose your own word in that space of magical. And so I would say something amazing that happens when a child can use their imagination and it take them away, at least temporarily, from the things that they are dealing with. I had no idea how poor we were because I was in my room pretending to be Diana Ross, who's getting ready for the Grammys, and I'm coming to accept my award. Yes, I said it. I came downstairs and the sheet draft all different kind of ways, my, I don't know what I probably did for hair, but you know, I had Diana Ross hair and I came downstairs, I walked past our kerosene heater because we don't have hot water or heat, so my mother uses kerosene heaters to heat our home and I sat down on our rental center floor model TV and I came to receive my award. My brother, if all goes well, this is going to be dropped on December the first, which will be my brother's December first heavenly birthday. He would be 49 today. I would sit down and my brother would look at my mother and my mother would look at my brother and they would both shake their head and they just let me sit there Accepting my Grammy award. So now that you listen to my story, nefertiti, what do you talk about? Why does this even matter? I wanted to do this recording in the month of December because we're getting ready to think about holiday gifts and I want you to make sure you are thinking about actively activating your child's imagination in everything you do, in everything you do.

Speaker 1:

Over the past weekend I said I was ready to do some podcast recordings. You know, get some out the way for us. And I I like to clean my office before I start, because I get in a better headspace when my office is clean. And so you know, it's been, I've been, I've been rocking and rolling. Office is looking good.

Speaker 1:

And so this weekend, this past weekend, madison has a closet over here and those of you who this may be your first time, madison is my natural born child. No, in vitro, no, nothing. After some miscarriages we just stopped, stopped trying to do all that fancy stuff. The doctor said do when. We just trusted God and we had I. We had our first baby. I had my first baby at 41, until Madison is now eight years old.

Speaker 1:

She decided that she wanted to go into her old closet and just decided she wanted to play. Now listen y'all. I just told you I was going to use the weekend to do some recordings, right for our podcast. And so I I come up here and Madison said mom, can I get a few of my things out of the closet. Sure, honey, the word was few, right. Well, after about an hour I come up serious to my office just to kind of see what she's doing, and I can't see the floor. I cannot see the floor. She has stuff everywhere. Now come here, let me tell you something. This is why I'm so glad that we have this space, because your child has taken every out every pot and pan that you own and they're pretending that they're a one man band or you have such a hard time helping your child keep their room clean. But they really get into play when they're in there.

Speaker 1:

And I am not making excuses for children making a mess and not cleaning it up, because, if I forget to say this at the end of the podcast, although she messed up my office, she cleaned it up too, and she even made a video for me to show it to you, because I told her I was going to use this space to talk about both the mess, but she cleaned up my office and she made a video of it. So what are we talking about? When I peeked up here to see what she was doing, she walked me around her space. She said, well, this is my kitchen and I'm cooking something over here. And then she said and this is where my kids go to school, this one goes to childcare and this one goes to this school, and I got to drive. I mean she was going on and on and on.

Speaker 1:

And this geriatric mother who, without proper knowledge, would have been like if you don't clean this, mess up and if you're listening to me on audio, I've got my face kind of scrunched up and I'm putting at the camera If you don't get in here, clean this room. But I didn't do that. It's the weekend, this is a space that I'm okay with her messing up, and if that means she's going to the Grammys and why your children need to go to, and so, once again, I want you just to sit here with me and take this all in and then think about ways that you can do this where you are and if you're already doing it, celebrate today that I'm bringing to you from the research how important it is that our children have a rich imagination.

Speaker 1:

Tyler Perry in the documentary talked about how much trauma he had as a young person and he said a lot of the characters that we see on screen and in life plays. They came out of trauma when he would go under the porch. He tapped into that amazing space called imagination and the beatings went away, the abuse went away, the uncertainty about do I matter? It went away. The feeling of it, does anybody care about me All of those things went away for just a little bit and out of his imagination came the character, media and so much of his career. And so again you have to feel sorry. I was going to say feel sorry for me. Like I watch TV shows and I'm like, oh my gosh, every parent needs to hear that, every parent needs to hear that. And then I say you got a podcast, you can go tell a few parents, let's make sure our children go to the Grammys. Okay, all right. So that's some of the reasons why imagination and pretend play are so important.

Speaker 1:

One of the greatest reasons for encouraging imagination is because of creativity. I am very afraid that with the use of devices and with us not being so connected as we used to be in terms of families and neighborhoods, I'm afraid of where the next Steve Jobs is going to come from, or the next designer. I've got all my Apple stuff right here in front of me, so it made me think of the Apple Creator first, but there's so many different people out there that are making their way in life because they were using their creativity, and creativity can be in form of math and science and dance and art, but the spirit to do that work starts very, very early, and so I want you to try your best to make sure you are giving space for imagination, because it's a total boost for creativity and with creativity you can do so many things. Again, if I go back to me going to the Grammys, I tried. There was a lot of stuff going on in my family's life and I don't know if I would even be the same person if I weren't able to escape it temporarily.

Speaker 1:

And some people say, well, never, td, don't the children need to feel a little bit of struggle? I've heard people say that before and I agreed. I agree with you to a certain degree, but some of the struggle that I heard my preschool students talking about that. I heard my kindergarten students talking to each other about some of the stuff I hear Madison talking with me about that they're talking about at the lunch table. Children should know all this stuff. They don't have the capacity to do anything with it and if we're not careful, it becomes a heavy burden over childhood and you know, one of the things I'm an advocate for is protecting childhood, and I think imagination is a great way to protect childhood.

Speaker 1:

So what do I do, nefertiti, if I've got boys and I've got girls and I've got a listen? One day I was teaching a child development class and I said to my students I want you this weekend or next week to go into the classroom and take out everything in your classroom that talks or walks or beeps. I said take all that stuff out and I want you to replace it with just open ended pieces of abstract objects that the children can wrap their creativity around. After a few weeks my students came back to me and said Ms Nefertiti, the kids keep saying to me our toys are broke because they're not talking to them, they're not singing to them, they're not lighting up. I'm not asking you to not buy those things and I don't want you to. I'm not saying that. I am saying look around your home. If you're listening to me today as a teacher. Look around the classroom and just write down all the things in your environment that are rich opportunities for imagination. That's what I want you to do. I want you just to see what you can find, and there's no right or wrong. Have you seen that? There's a video going around again? This is re-recording this in December of 2023. There's a woman. She's rapping the gifts that she know her child will play with shows. She's rapping a pair of keys. She's rapping the remote. She's rapping like a pot from the kitchen. I was like, yes, if I get a gift, if I can find that video too, I'll put it in the show notes, but that's the stuff that they play with.

Speaker 1:

About a month or so ago, we have a neighbor that comes to visit. Our backyard is spacious, but there's not a lot of stuff back there. There really is not a lot of stuff. It's nothing. There's no toys or anything back there. So one afternoon, mason and Madison were playing and I was sitting at the dining room table because you know I'm big on supervision and I looked at my watch and I'm saying to myself they've been out there a long time, y'all. They had found stuff and were making stuff and turned stuff upside down. Once again, it is such a joy to this geriatric heart, who also is an educator. They took things that you and I were probably never thinking to make into something, and they were doing it and it was just amazing to see.

Speaker 1:

And so creativity is one of the primary reasons why you want to make sure your children are engaging in rich imaginative play. You want to know something else that's good for imagination, problem solving Problem solving See, when I was a teacher, sometimes my parents, particularly my kindergarten parents, would wonder why I wasn't always giving homework right. And I knew I was doing my absolute best during the day and I knew that for my student, homework was sometimes a terribly arduous task for their families and I didn't know if it had that much value at. And so I would send home a homework assignment that said read tonight, or make sure you have dinner tonight and help mom and dad or help your family cook. And some days I wrote I want you to pretend to be, and then I would write a blank. I want you to pretend to be whatever you want and be ready to tell me all about it tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

When children are in imaginative play and they run into, maybe something breaks, or they start talking out loud and they're like this is not going to work this way. That gives them opportunity to put their problem solving hat on and if, for any reason, you're close by or maybe you're even playing with them, you can start to ask open ended questions. Oh my gosh, if this doesn't work out this way, what could we do over here? You think that'll work? Oh, and listen to me, they are going to light up. They just the thought of you listening to them and taking in their questions and concerns and comments. And listen, remember, when we do this with a four year old and eight year old, can you imagine what life could feel like for them in 14 and 18? Can you just start to envision that, if they have rich creativity and they're, they're great problem solvers? Listen, sign me up for that class. I want to be in a classroom where children are being creative and problem solving, and that could happen when environments are rich in moments of, and not in moments, in many, many moments of imaginative play.

Speaker 1:

The third area, the third reason why I want to suggest that we really lean into imaginative play, and I want you to come back and listen to this podcast the day after the holiday, you know, after you buy your children all those gifts and they're not playing with none of them. I want you to come back to this podcast and remember what I said, because you know what's gonna happen. Right, it's gonna be 14 hours after all of those gifts are open and they're gonna look at you like I'm bored and I want you to come back to our podcast space. Remember creativity, remember problem-solving. And then my third idea of why this is so important is empathy. It is empathy. Empathy is a child's ability and adult's ability to try to understand what another person is feeling. You may not have ever experienced the same experience, but you can experience similar feelings. And again, those of you that are again either listening to me on audio or over here on YouTube I think sometimes why we don't have empathy as grown-ups is because we didn't have it as young people, and I do believe it can be taught in direct lessons and read about in books.

Speaker 1:

I do believe that I also believe that when a child is playing and something happens and we can say oh, how do you think the doll baby feels that we've run out of food? Oh, how do you feel? How do you think that the cat feels that his arm isn't working and like it used to work? How do you think it feels that the car won't start? How do you think the people that are waiting for us to pick them up. How do you think they feel? You see the theatrics I'm going into? Well, again, if you wouldn't mind hanging out with your child for a little bit in some pretend play, you can learn so much about them and you can help advance the skill of empathy, trying to understand what another person is feeling. It can be promoted through pretend play. And so, again, let's go to the Grammys and let's bring our children with us.

Speaker 1:

Alright, the fourth reason I'm a gamma. I'm winding a stand. I know we don't have short attention. We all have short attention spans and if you don't, I do so. I try to keep it as short as I can, but also, it's important information. So, where I need to take our, we need to take our time. I want us to do that so we have creativity, we have problem-solving, we have empathy, and then we have language development. Language development. See, I want you to watch me do something. Oh, oh, oh, you get my point again.

Speaker 1:

In some upcoming podcast, we will talk about just how much screen time, what to do about those things again, we will talk about that. But I want us to be very careful, especially when we're talking about our eight and younger babies, about all this screen time. Rich pretend play presents us with great opportunities for rich language development. When I came up here to see all this mess Madison made in my room I she could have talked with me for hours about the different things she was doing and and and and how people were feeling. And how did she? Because one child goes to daycare and other child goes to the school like she was going all for it and again to somebody who doesn't know any better you just. But now that you're listening to the geriatric mom podcast, you will ask more open-ended questions. You'll get down on the floor and play with them. You'll, you'll, you'll take turns playing in different roles, and I wish I could tell you in enough words how much value you're doing when you do this.

Speaker 1:

And I also would like to ask you to remember that, especially under your early care and education programs, when you see your children playing, we want you to know that they are learning. Sometimes parents would rather see a child doodling on a handout or, you know, doing some other things, and again, there is a place for those things. But please don't misunderstand the learning that is happening when your children are engaged in rich, imaginative play. And again you may look around the classroom and like why they don't have any. No, no computers in here. No, no, no. That could be an amazing program because Europe, sometimes we get, we start looking for the bells and the whistles.

Speaker 1:

The bells and the whistles take sometimes take away from the opportunity for children to do what we're talking about right now. And again, I'm not don't want, don't want to be misunderstood. There has to be a balance. But I hope what you're taking away from my podcast today is I need to do my best to provide my children with rich opportunities to just be, and sometimes that means turning off the TV, getting outside, not having everything that lights up, turns upside down, and just let them be. And when I tell you language, language development can thrive in environments where there is rich imagination and pretend play opportunity. So again, welcome those when you see them in your school settings and provide as many opportunities as you can in the home setting. All right.

Speaker 1:

Reason number five why you want your child to go to the Grammys or at least have some rich pretend play. They don't have to go to the Grammys, but you do what they have to have rich imaginations. The reason why you want to do this too is because of that development we talked about. I think it was in podcast number two cognitive development, their ability to think and process. I want you to try it. Okay, I just want you to try it and then come back to the podcast. If you're listening to me audio you and I'm gonna always have my email in the show notes send me a message to let me know what you're thinking about as you listened, and then practice this with your children. And if you're in YouTube, land over here with me. I'm go ahead and drop some comments. The ability to put things together and figure things out and take an abstract, a fall or process and make it start to make sense. All of those opportunities are presented for young people when they are in pretend play. And again, you can call it pretend play, you can call it imagination, I don't care what you call it. I'm just asking you today, in today's podcast, to make it happen About maybe four years ago Madison was four.

Speaker 1:

Well, if she's eight, of course, four years ago she was four. And you know I'm a geriatric, first-time mom, right? So I'm a preschool teacher. Four-year-olds are my favorite. I brought all the things I needed to listen to my own podcast. I brought all the things Y'all I'm telling you. It had to be five minutes before she was playing in the box that the toys came in Playing in the box that the toys came in, and I said to myself I will never do that again. I will never do that again. And so you want to recap with me. Let's go back.

Speaker 1:

I started my conversation by saying to you I went to the Grammys and I want your child to go to the Grammys too. And the reason why I said that is because I want you to think about what experiences are your child, is your child fully living out? And it's they're using their imagination. What are they doing? What are they talking about? They don't have to go to the Grammys, but I'm asking you, where are they going and what are they doing? And then I told you what I learned by watching the documentary with Tyler Perry and how some of his imagination grew out of trauma.

Speaker 1:

A rich imagination can protect your child from what you're going through right now. It's hard enough for you to deal with it, and so if there is a way to get some rich pretend play, maybe, maybe you're so tired and overwhelmed with this situation, but maybe the child gets to spend some time with a family, a safe family member. When you say to them, can you say to them I watch this podcast with this woman who told me about pretend play. You know, when you guys go to the park or the playground this weekend, can you just kind of play along with them and pretend that you are this or this or this or that. Do you understand what I say?

Speaker 1:

As I say this, I want you to try your best to create intentional moments of pretend play. If it's happening, congratulations, keep it up. And if it's not happening, you're not listening to this by accident, and if you are listening to me, at a point in your life when you're going through some things, I know the last thing you're thinking about is play, but it's one of the best things you can do to keep your child safe. Until this thing is past, go ahead and create some rich opportunities for pretend play. It doesn't take the situation away, but it may give your child just the protection they need so that this doesn't have to be something that they have to carry into their childhood and into their adult life. Okay, and so again, I said five reasons why you want to do it. One of the first reasons is to promote creativity. One of the second reasons is to do problem solving. There are rich opportunities for children to learn problem-solving skills while they are engaged in pretend play. The third reason was empathy. Characters have feelings. People have feelings. We can start talking about those feelings while we are engaged in pretend play.

Speaker 1:

The fourth idea of why we want to do this is language development. There's lots of data that talks about just the the number of words that a child knows before they enter into school, and a lot of times we automatically think that nobody's reading to this child. And that could very well be true, but I often sometimes think nobody is playing with this child, because children who are engaged in rich play and when the babies are young, they can do this too. I remember being at a breakfast table one day after church and there was a basket of biscuits going around and the little guy he might have been 18 months or so he picked up the biscuit from the table and he did like this and then he put it up to his ear. He was pretending the biscuit was a phone. I was so happy. I was so happy because now we can say who you talking to, are you talking what they say, where are they, are they having a good day? And again people may wonder, like, why is she doing all of that Development, the learning that we are seeing?

Speaker 1:

That's not happening at fourth grade, it didn't happen at 14. It didn't happen in the fourth grade, it happened before that. So let's do the work to make sure our children are the very best that they can be. So there's language development and then, finally, I concluded with cognitive development. Get those brain synapses connecting y'all. And again, I'm talking to you today not just as an educator, but also as a mom who's, eight year old, messed up her office, but she also cleaned it up, and so again, let's go with for rich, pretend, play, alright, alright. That's it for today.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for hanging out with your geriatric mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you learned something today, would you please go ahead and press the button and make sure somebody else gets to learn about our community, and I can't wait to see you next time. Thank you for listening. Remember it takes a healthy village to raise healthy children. Let's do it together.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Geriatric Mom Podcast. I can't do this without you, and so if you heard something that you think is worth sharing with somebody else, please do that and go ahead and like it and follow it and subscribe to it. You know, do all the things and, above all, what are you taking away from today's podcast? Go ahead and let me know. Send me an email at contact, at she knows what she's doingcom. Let me know what you're going to do or what you are doing to make sure your child has a rich pretend play life. And if you're listening to me and YouTube playing, go ahead and drop a comment down below and let me know what you're taking away. Thank you for listening and I look forward to talking to you in our next episode.