Yesterday morning my five-year-old began with some imaginative drawing, as he frequently does.  By the time I caught up with him and his three-year-old brother sitting at the kitchen counter they were working together to develop a scenario that would preempt the mornings first game.  The big guy was drawing a monster.  This particular monster was the kind who found significant pleasure in the invasion of our families “stadiums.”  Apparently each member of our family has a stadium named after him or her.  That makes six stadiums, plus one aptly named for a real stadium that we love…Spartan Stadium (Go Green, Go White)!  All told that makes seven stadiums inside of our modestly sized house.  Talk about imagination!

Anyway, the monster in the drawing had speech bubbles coming from both sides of his head. Naturally, he had those speech bubbles coming out of his head because he was talking.  My five-year-old is quite capable of writing many words.  He practices all the time, he loves to write, and he does a really nice job of it.  But in these speech bubbles I only saw squiggly lines and other such marks.  Even though there were no words in the speech bubbles (at least none that I could decipher) the kid told me what the monster was saying in great detail as he pointed to the squiggly lines (and other such marks).

The monster was saying that he was planning to invade each of our stadiums. He was saying that he doesn’t like little kids. He was saying that he likes to eat little kids.  It was pretty heady stuff.  Big brother read the quoted text with great enthusiasm and expression.  Little brother’s eyes lit up.  If he had a tail it would have been waging.  He looked back and forth from the storyteller to me as if to exclaim, “Can you believe it?!”  After every few words he chimed in with, “Yeah…and I don’t want to be eaten!” or “And this Monster is a bad Guy!” or “We have to save our stadiums!”  It was the making of a pretty exciting game, and it was a riveting author’s telling of really great story!

Underneath the monster the guys had designed and drawn a map.  Before long it was time to follow that map, find that monster, and save the day!  What a great lesson for me.  Inventive writing is a really good thing as young writers are learning to understand and appreciate their capacity to be expressive, to share their thoughts, to share their ideas, and to tell their stories.

I must admit that my initial instinct was to remind the kid about what a good writer he is.  But what would that indicate, that he was being a bad writer now?  Part of me wanted to take the time to coach him through a process by which the story of the monster would unfold with language that could be read by someone other than him.  However, I quickly realized that this writing was actually pretty spectacular.  In fact, I also realized that it could now be read by all three of us.  I thought better of shifting the energy.

Here’s a kid who’s super excited to be a writer.  I want to encourage that.  I want to encourage his enthusiasm about diving into his imagination un-intimidated.  I want to encourage his eagerness and enjoyment over being a storyteller.  I want to encourage the energy I saw this morning as these two brothers worked their way through a mystery by putting pen to paper!  What if someone told Dr. Seuss not to make words up?  What if someone told Dali not to scribble lines that “didn’t make sense?”  What if someone told Dr. King that his dreams were unrealistic?  A stretch, maybe…but these and other great storytellers have changed the course of history, un-intimidated by the possibility that they were challenging convention, and unencumbered by having to fit a mold.  Maybe my kids are gearing up to do the same?

The words will come.  The sentences will form.  More importantly, I want to make sure these guys understand that they are writers.  Through my training as an educator and a reading specialist, and now through my most important work as a parent, I’ve learned that there is no substitute for genuine passion and dedicated confidence when it comes to positive progress in learning and growth!

So, with that in mind, as you think about supporting the kids you serve on joyful learning journeys, I leave you with this question:  ~~~ (~)~~ ~~= ===…. _-_-_?

Live. Learn. Lead.

Dream Big. Work Hard. Be Well.