For the love of words

It's endlessly fascinating to me to watch my kids grow.  Lately, I've been struggling with setting boundaries on their activities.  How much do I let them fight before I step in? How long do I allow them to watch television per day? How often should I show them the "better," more efficient way to do something? For how long do I let them struggle to do something before I offer my help?  And (ready for this?) how long do I let E read books before forcing her to transition to a different activity?

E LOVES words. Books hold her attention for hours.  Word play is a part of everyday conversation. She rhymes sentences as often as she can in conversation. She loves integrating big words into her talk. She's entered the stage of telling jokes that crack her up and leave us scratching our heads. And she is forever asking me to repeat songs or poems so she can memorize them and recite them later.  Yesterday, she spent the entire afternoon and evening "reading." I kept trying to direct her to something else, but I kept failing miserably.  I figured that doing one thing for a whole afternoon isn't really healthy, no matter what it is.  And sometimes I worry that she gets too lost in the pages of her books, becoming unaware of the real, living, breathing world around her. 

I am the same way.  When I need a break from the chaos of life, I find a quiet spot away from the noise and pick up a book or a magazine.  Some people decompress from their days watching television or chatting with friends.  I like doing those things, too, but my first line of defense from stress is books.  (And maybe a latte.) I was pondering that connection E and I have this morning, one ear on the story she was creating from the other room. It occurred to me that often the stories she tells with her books reflect her current experiences.  Lately, her stories are about school and friends.  Then she picked up Dr. Seuss's Happy Birthday to You. (Her birthday is right around the corner.) When she "reads" these stories, she holds the book outward, as if she's reading to a room of listeners.  And then it hit me.

I've been worrying all this time that her reading habit is a form of escapism from the world.  She tends to get overstimulated fairly quickly.  Her typical response is either bouncing off the walls, talking a mile a minute, or falling to the floor in a heap of tears.  So all this time I've assumed that her passion for pages is a form of retreat.  But I realize now that it's so much more than that.  Everything about story makes sense to E. She gets the structure of story. She understands plot and conflict and character development.  She knows how to make her voice rise and fall to mimic a real conversation. She creates dialogue like a seasoned novelist. I'm realizing now that she interprets life through story.  She experiences something new or exciting or hard and she runs for the couch, picks up a book, and replays it in pictures and words.  She isn't trying to escape reality, she's confronting it head on in the best way she knows how. She makes sense of life by narrating it to a room of invisible listeners.  But really, the most important listener is her. She speaks it out loud, she gives it structure, she creates conversations, she lets characters struggle and succeed.  She does this and then she gets up off the couch and carries on with her day.  It's quite brilliant, really, that a five year old has the wherewithal to make sense of her experiences in this way.

I should trust my kids more. They need me less than I think they do.  They grow without my intervention 24/7. Isn't it great?  Now excuse me while I go get big sister off the couch and into the world!