When Bad Things Happen, I Cope Like a Child
When did we outgrow our natural ways of coping?
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My 4-year-old moves in and out of make-believe worlds with less effort than it takes her tiny hands to put on her shoes. She spends much of her time pretending that she is a cat, a dog, or another creature, and expects that everyone around her will play along with her new identity. She is rarely alone, always having one or two stuffed animals tagging along, who also serve as characters in her story. It’s delightful to watch her imagination flourish, even when I feel that I can barely keep up. Who are we today? Clementine the orange cat? Bolt the superhero dog? Or simply a flamingo, because we happened to read a book about flamingos. Given the heaviness of the real world, I can’t say I blame her for making a quick escape into an alternate reality. I was, of course, a child once, and I also relied heavily on my imagination to entertain, distract, soothe, and delight. This, I remember.
I have been thinking a lot about the ways that children cope and by extension, the way that we all innately coped as children.