Have you seen the new book, “The Day The Crayons Quit”? This series of blog posts has been exploring how children’s play can have an impact beyond fun, learning and kindergarten readiness that lasts into adulthood. Although this one isn’t about play, it is another example of how the life of a child can impact that person as an adult.
The author of “The Day The Crayons Quit” is Drew Daywalt. He is also the creator of Internet horror films. The really, really scary kind. He recently wrote about this wide gap, but sees how adult horror and children’s stories are related. He asks us to think about the time in our lives when we were most optimistic and excited about life, with an imagination that stretched to magic and super powers. For you, would that be around the age of 5? Then, when was the scariest, nightmare, boogeyman time? Would you answer around 5 years old, again? These opposites, hope and fear, are both from childhood. Drew Daywalt writes, “To know yourself, to know your child, is to know the most diverse bit of duality that exists in the human psyche. Tap into one, and you almost can’t help but tap into the other.”
In a way, that explains kids, too! They can be so delightful and so much the opposite. On his Twitter profile, Drew writes about more opposites: growing up in a haunted house reading Dr. Seuss. That contrast could indeed have had an influence on his career! When kids grow up, they don’t separate from what they learned and who they were as children. We develop beyond that, but take those days with us.
For your child today, set out the crayons. Would your child like to draw a scary picture or a happy one, or perhaps both of them? What will the crayons do at your house?