A month or so before Naeem’s first birthday, I was feeling a bit like a lousy parent. My son hadn’t learned to walk. Sure, like most toddlers Naeem could take a few steps on his own, but he couldn’t take many.
Each attempt to walk began with him standing up confidently and taking a few short steps, but before you could blink your eyes, he would be sitting on the floor – smiling no less. Naeem was part Weeble part Crash Test Dummy. He wobbled, and then crashed on the floor.
HE RAN BEFORE HE WALKED
While his mom and I would dejectedly look at each other after each of his failed attempts to walk, Naeem would sit on the floor mischievously grinning as if he knew something we didn’t. The more disheartened we were about our parenting skills, the more exuberant he appeared to be about his life. I now know that Naeem didn’t care about his walking peers; he had other grandiose ideas.
Days before his first birthday, Naeem stood up and positioned himself as he had done hundreds of times to start walking. Only this time, he didn’t attempt to walk, he started running. I kid you not; it was the craziest thing — my baby, who previously would wobble and crash suddenly sprinted across the room.
For the next month, rather than wobble and tumble, Naeem ran. Whenever he needed or wanted to get somewhere, Naeem took off running.
In retrospect, Naeem running before walking makes perfect sense. Wanting to get there in a hurry is who he is. Not only was walking was too slow but for Naeem walking was only allowed when running is prohibited.
Today, I believe my baby boy’s running was his symbolic way of asking his parents two questions that we should have but hadn’t already asked and answered about our own lives:
- Why go slow when you could get there fast? (Urgency)
- Why journey short distances when you can go much further? (Imagination)
IMAGINATION AND URGENCY
Naeem has never slowed down or scaled-back his extraordinary imagination. Be it modeling, acting, track, soccer, education, or humanitarianism, Naeem continues going farther than his parents could have imagined and he persists with an enormous sense of urgency.
No way has he ever wanted to trifle with walking literally or figuratively. These days more than being propelled by two legs, his inspiration comes from two fundamental principles: imagination and urgency. Just as baby Naeem imagined getting from place to place faster, grown Naeem continues to imagine living his best life and doing so urgently.
Now for as much as I enjoy taking a walk or in Naeem’s case a sprint down memory lane, I hope you recognize that this post is to remind you of just one thing. Like baby Naeem taught us years ago, you must encourage your children so that they may remain extraordinarily imaginative.
EXTRAORDINARY IMAGINATION
Did you know that all children have something in common with nearly every great scientists, engineer, artist, architect and the like – an extraordinary imagination. Unfortunately, not enough children have their imaginations nurtured through adulthood. The lack of proper imagination cultivation results in too many children being forced to settle for ordinary lives when they could have and should be doing the extraordinary.
Absent extraordinarily imaginative children each of us would be living a grueling and more mundane life. Imagine telecommunications absent the extraordinary imagination of Dr. Shirley Jackson, transportation without the extraordinary imagination of the Wright brothers, or solar energy utilization without the extraordinary imagination of Dr. Maria Telkes.
ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, GO!
A month or so after Naeem’s first birthday he decided to walk. I must admit that Naeem walking was a bit anticlimactic for all of us. That’s because, between the time he first ran and the time he decided to walk, the entire family adopted his need to go fast by starting to run sprints together at a local high school track.
Rather than lament how he differed from the other toddlers, we bought what would be Naeem’s first of numerous pairs of track shoes. Together, the three of us ran 100-meter sprints. While LaTonya and I ran to get in shape, I surmise Naeem ran to prepare himself to do extraordinarily imaginative things throughout his life.
SLOW DOWN, YOU CRAZY CHILD
We were fortunate we chose to embrace baby Naeem’s difference, and nurture his extraordinary imagination. However, parents frequently and unintentionally get things all wrong by expecting and raising children to be just like all the other children.
Sadly, we birth into existence babies who imagine going to Mars to live with new life forms, but we raise children who despise going to school and rebuff worshipping with kids of different racial groups, national origins, genders, socio-economic standing, or physical ability.
It’s worth noting that the history books favor the extraordinarily imaginative children. So, I hope that the next time you consider telling a child to get their head out of the clouds or slow down, you might pause before opening your mouth.
I hope you remember that when we command kids to stop being extraordinarily imaginative, we set them up to become ordinary lackluster adults instead of innovative scientists, engineers, artists, and mathematicians. When we remove our children’s extraordinary imagination, we mess up our children far too often and faster than baby Naeem ran from one side of the room to the other.
Are you modeling for your children what it means to live with a sense of urgency? Are you modeling for your children what it means to live with an imaginative vision?
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Originally published on The RS Project
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