Subscribe to Our Feed!BigBrother frequently plays firefighter. Upstairs, downstairs, outside, in the car. He doesn’t even need his uniform, boots, air pack and hose. His imagination is rather awesome. Today he turned a recorder into a hose. I heard him making the whooshing sound of imaginary water putting out an imaginary fire from his playroom.
And then I heard this from the stairwell.
Mommy! There’s a fire!
A pause.
And smoke!
I immediately left my work station, opened the gate to the stairs and ran down to his playroom. I didn’t smell smoke. I knew that he was imagining himself to be a firefighter. I had heard the sounds he was making to put out a fire. And as I came down the steps, I saw him standing there with his musical instrument posing as a hose. But, still, I went, heart caught somewhere in my throat.
I asked him to show me, as I rounded the corner of the hallway into the playroom. He ran in front of me and pointed to a spot in the middle of his floor where all of his trains were crashed together on his Thomas the Train rug. There was no fire. I told him that I was glad he had his hose and that he was a brave firefighter. I also told him that I was proud of him for telling mommy that there was a fire. And I went back upstairs.
FireDad and I agreed, walking back up the steps, that while we were almost 100% sure that he was just talking about an imaginary fire, it was a phrase we simply couldn’t ignore. What if it had been real and we had just said, “Okay Buddy! Good work being a firefighter,” down the steps? While we didn’t smell anything, what if it had only been the first flickers, leaving us plenty of time to put it out before damage happened? A million questions raced through our heads. Should we encourage firefighter imagination play or not?
In the end, we’re not going to tell him he can’t pretend to be a firefighter. We’re going to let him pretend to be whatever it is that he wants to be whether that’s a firefighter or a space man or a cowboy or a teacher or a bear. We will, however, leave whatever it is that we are doing each and every time he mentions the word fire. It would fall at our feet if something was wrong and we didn’t believe him. I won’t even bother asking, “Is it a pretend fire or real,” because, to BigBrother, everything is real. Especially his imagination.
In the end, I will likely get a good leg workout running up and down steps. There’s always a silver lining to parenting, right?
6 Responses to “The Imagination Play Phrase You Should Never Ignore”
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Good reminder!
We haven’t had any imaginary fires around here, but we do often have floods and bad guys. And, you’re right, you have to take them seriously, because the one time you don’t … I don’t even want to think about that.
9to5to9s last blog post..Along came a spider and sat down beside her …
Another topic for you to talk about someday may be the difference between teaching about fire, and just saying “You will be in so much trouble for touching the matches!” (Very sad story that you can wait to read if you are in a vulnerable space: Years before I was born, my Aunt V had two boys, 5 and 1. V had told 5 to never, never, never touch the matches or he would get a spanking. So, when he started a fire in the nursery with the matches, he didn’t run to tell his mom, he hid in a closet. And when they started yelling for him, he didn’t come out. His little brother is 35 now, and had been through countless skin grafts, and I never met 5. My Aunt V never hid this story from us as kids, because we did need to know why fire was dangerous, not just because our parents would be mad. And man, as a mom, it hits me on a completely different level then it did as a kid.)
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So true not to ignore that one.
But how cute that he’s playing at Daddy’s work. Nate used to “grade papers.”
Judys last blog post..forgiveness and self-forgiveness
Absolutely!! Truth is you should always have one ear open when your children are playing. The things that run through their minds can be very informative. Glad t was just a play fire though.
Upstatemomof3s last blog post..Hockey Week In Review
My sister ran into this quandary when her son said, “Mom, help me!” How urgent should the response be? How fast should she run? Is Daddy just teasing him again, or did he seriously hurt himself?
She decided in the end to go with telling her son to use the Spanish phrase for help me (“Ayuda me!”) when he is just playing (e.g. Daddy is tickling him and he wants her to “rescue him”) and reserve “Help me!” for situations when he is in real danger. I am not sure that’s not going a little too far, but you might institute something in your house like that, to allow him to continue playing firefighter and your heart to continue beating a normal pace.
Another nasty fire story in my family too. My uncle, when a child, was likewise told never to play with matches though the reasoning wasn’t explained. He ended up starting a fire with matches he wasn’t meant to have and, like a previous poster, he didn’t tell his parents. Instead, he ‘ran away.’ The house was severely damaged and for a time (while the fire was raging) it was feared that my uncle was trapped in it. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But the loss of possessions and damage to the home could have been avoided.
So yup, I’m with ya. If my kiddos say anything about fire, I’ll be checking it out each and every time.
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