Ah, childhood. The memories of having lived through it, and the experience of watching our own kids move through the same developmental stages as we did fills us with a deep sense of appreciation for the wonders of being young, of exploring our world. Childhood is a magical time, and the perspectives with which innocent minds view our world can seem eerily accurate, even without their decades worth of life experience. Kids can transform a box of reusable food storage containers into a space station, an alien hotel or an icy mountain avalanche. Kids ask questions that challenge our honesty and make us uncomfortable. What is the mechanism by which these pure hearts and inquisitive minds come to these perspectives? The answer can be found hidden in childhood play and imagination.
 
Children make a game out of everything. Play and learning go hand in hand. When we see children engaged in their playfulness, we see find that they can be just as enamored by a box of rocks or a drawer full of plastic storage containers as they are with a fifty dollar robotic dinosaur with realistic roaring action. Kids do not need fancy electronics to keep them engaged. They make up their own scenarios. For centuries, children have played with whatever they had at their disposal, crafting games and action figures from sticks, rocks, corn husks and whatever else they could find, making magic with cardboard boxes, bubble wrapping and a roll of masking tape, flying through space in a rocket ship of their own making, creating a doll house out of storage containers that were originally meant for holding shoes, children animate everything with their imaginations, and rightfully so. They have yet to be burdened by the stresses of our adult life, the crises that we seem to have such an easy time latching onto in our later years. These places are often great for Storing boats .
 
Why do we trade fun for crisis in our adult life? Is the so called real world of violence, war and financial difficulty so exciting that we must focus on it exclusively, feeding the raging social machinery of worry and insecurity with our own thoughts? When children worry incessantly about monsters in their closet or a scary man coming after them, is it possible that they are reflecting the survival fears that we display in our own lives and using their active imaginations to amplify those fears? Our adult minds become storage containers of a different kind, overflowing with doubts, media imagery and messages, and beliefs that are imposed upon us by others throughout our lives. Children are indeed affected by the negativity that we surround ourselves with, whether it is through the media and the news, through our own fears of what is going on, or through the concerns of peers.
 
Perhaps, in order to unlock the chains of fear that we find ourselves wrapped up in, we should begin first by learning from our children rather than trying to mold them into our own personal parenting trophies. Before we impose our limitations upon their innocent and wondrous imaginations, let us first unlock those storage containers of doubt that our minds have become and give kids the opportunity to create life on their own terms as often as they can. Why imprison anothers mind simply because in the past we, too were imprisoned? Let the children play, and encourage healthy expression, rather than limiting your childrens speech and opinions. Let them be who they are meant to be right from the beginning, so that they can grow into who they can become and benefit us all with their gifts.