Imaginative expression is vital for the young child and must not be overlooked, October 1938 - Susan Isaacs replies to a parent's concerns out her dawdling child by emphasising the need for expressiveness and imagination, especially if the curriculum is too formal and narrow .

October 1938 in Home and School "Readers' Questions"

Dawdling and dreaminess can by thought about by considering at the bigger question of the child's imaginative expression.

“A.S.H." writes: -

“In a recent “HOME AND SCHOOL” there was an article on “Dawdling Children”. My elder daughter is of this type. Briefly, I understand the mother is advised not to wear herself out by hustling the child but leave the child to exert herself. I have tried this. The result is that the child (aged six) – of Celtic temperament – still dawdles, is completely lost in a world of make-believe, and is quite unperturbed by the fact that she will be late for school – or anything else. It is absolutely essential that she be ready to leave in the morning at the correct time, as her father takes her to school and by car, and he cannot be delayed. Therefore, I have to hustle! and sympathise with the hypothetical “Harold’s “mother! She has a long day – living some miles from the school- and she must have her breakfast and she must be properly dressed. I could write articles on children - but how is a busy mother to deal with them? I shall be most grateful for practical help. The child is not selfish, is above average intelligence (this is a report from school and not a maternal delusion) but has a dreamy, thoughtful nature, which simply will not hurry. She is completely uninterested in food and sweets, is not particularly interested in games; she is insatiable for stories – like all children – but loathes anything unkind or ugly. Her greatest punishment would be to stop her playing the piano. I threatened this: she replied, “Well I can sing”. She is sensitive to scolding, but this becomes “nagging”. Please how am I to stop her dawdling?”

It is very difficult for the busy mother when a child seems unable to co-operate in getting through routine at a necessary speed. It seems so perverse and irrational, and it is natural to feel that the child won’t hurry, won’t give up her dreaming and attend to what has to be done.

It is natural to see things in this way, and hence equally natural to urge and remind and plead and scold and to wonder what punishment would make the child sensible. But doesn’t your own experience show that this short cut, of urging and scolding and threatening, is in fact a very long way round? It doesn’t get the result you want, does it? I have never known a dreamy child made more practical and cooperative by hustling and scolding. It usuallyseems to have the opposite effect, to make her even more exasperatingly slow and unresponsive. Urging and scolding relieves mother’s feelings, but does nothing to change the source of the annoyance.

So, the apparently longer way round, of taking time to consider what the dreaminess and dawdling might mean, may in fact be the shortest way home. 

Not it is not possible for me, on the grounds of what you tell me in your letter, to surmise with any sort of exactness or detail what your little girl’s dreams are about, or what feelings are occupying her mind and distracting her attention from the practical affair of getting ready for school. But you can be sure that her mind is occupied with something of great importance to herself, and that these pre-occupations are stirred up by the present circumstances of her life.

Don’t you think, in the first place, that such a long day of school life, with a journey by car at the beginning and the end of it, may be a considerable strain for a child of juts six years? Of course, that is just one of the reasons which makes you so anxious for her to get a proper breakfast, and get ready in good time – your feeling is that this would lessen the strain for her. Which is quite true – but that does not alter the probability that her dawdling and dreaminess is itself partly the result of the strain of adapting to the pressure of school life. 

Many children find the early years of school a great effort, especially if methods of teaching are too formal or too narrow, or if too much stress is laid on competing with other children. And different children show their sense of strain in different ways – some lose appetite, some have night terrors, some become peevish, others withdraw into their private world of dreams. It is possible that your daughter’s school fails to use her imaginative powers and natural interests, or drives too hard for marks and stars and promotions? I would want to know whether some mistake of this sort were not responsible for the child’s excessive dawdling – whether she were not actually reluctant to go to school, for reasons of this kind. Again, I would want to find out, too, whether she were happy or unhappy with other children at school. 

You might not be able to find out these things by direct questioning of the child, but you could let her feel that you were alive to such possibilities of the child, but you could let her feel that you were alive to such possibilities, and interested in her experiences. And even apart from particular information about her friends or her school work, it is often of great help to such a dreamy child if you let her talk or draw from her imagination. Encourage her to tell stories, - not merely listen to them; and to draw freely. Let her feel that you value her imaginings as well as those of the story writers, that you care about what she has in her own mind, as well as what you want her to learn from other people. Do you have a story-time when she goes to bed? If she could share her make-believe with you, she might feel more able to adapt to practical necessities at other times. Give her time to dawdle on other occasions than the morning hustle, time to dream and to possess her on thoughts. She will probably then feel less stubborn need to resist your efficiency when time is really short and events are waiting.

One other point: in many children, this dawdling and dreaming, like other difficulties, are partly a matter of age. They may be characteristic of a particular child, but will show more strongly at some ages than at others. And your daughter is just now at one of the special periods of conflict and anxiety – due to the psychological effects of the experience of second teething. You may have read what I have written about this in earlier issues. It is when formal and competitive school life coincides with the anxieties arising from this phase of development, that the greatest stress is felt. To get over the difficulties of this phase of life, the child musthave time. Her natural recuperative powers will carry her through – if only we do give time and leisure - time to dream and play, to find a new emotional balance within herself.

The practical difficulty, therefore, so trying at the moment form your point of view, is likely to get much less as time goes on. But you can aid this natural process of adjustment more by this wider consideration of the child’s imaginative needs, than by concentrating your attention on the question of her morning dawdling.