Can a child’s imagination go too far? Introducing Coconut Island

by Matthew Worwood

Hello World – I’m Coconut Island

Anyone heard of Coconut Island? I’m not talking about the Coconut Island that Google Maps will take you to on the island of Hawaii. I’m taking about the Coconut Island that now exists in the Indian Ocean. Yes, that’s right! Me, and my boy have been busy over the winter adding a new Island to our world, which I think makes for a good excuse for not blogging much over the last few months.

See Also: Imagination is more important than knowledge

Well to be accurate, my boy’s imagination has been busy manifesting a small horse shaped island not too far away from Madagascar, which has moved about a little, but now resides at approximately 10.479898 Latitude, and 42.710072 Longitude, thanks to the new world map we created in Photoshop (see below) – has this gone too far? Can a child’s imagination go too far?

The location of Coconut Island as described by my boy.

The location of Coconut Island as described by my boy. Was putting it into Photoshop too much?

It could be argued that my role as a parent on this project has been limited to a silent observer and videographer – but clearly I’m encouraging! I’m not really sure where the island came from, how it’s customs materialized, and why Mount Humainus, it’s tallest peak, was once a volcano, but no it’s not – I’ve learnt a lot about the island as part of our Discover Coconut Island series that we started on our YouTube channel.

It’s certainly been fun asking him questions about this epic adventure, which has just grown and grown and grown. Even his teachers and friends and school have heard about Coconut Island, and I’ve started to wonder if we’ve (or more specifically ‘I’) been playing into his imagination too much? What do you think? Can a parent’s encouragement take child a little too far beyond reality? Is that ever a bad thing?

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Here are 4 reasons why I’m ok about encouraging his imagination right now:

  • He seems to apply factual information that he obtains about the real world to his island. For example, we only heard about Mount Humainus after watching a show about Mount Everest.
  • Our conversations about Coconut Island, have given us reason to utilize Google Maps, learn about the Climate near the equator, and explore some of the things that I suspect will come up in his geography lessons.
  • He seems to be creating a ‘culture’ that has money, customs, and a value system. It feels like every time we share something new, such as what people eat in other countries, or what they believe, he takes this into his heard and responds with it’s equivalency on Coconut Island.
  • I think the initial concept of Coconut Island came about during a SKYPE call with Granma, so anything that adds to their relationship and brings them closer together is never a bad thing.

PS. I’m back – I’ll be blogging approximately once a week over the summer and have collected some FANTASTIC 3 Question Interviews, that I’ll be sharing soon.


 

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Matthew Worwood
Matthew Worwood is an educator, Creative Studies scholar-practitioner, and co-host of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. He is a professor of Digital Media Design at the University of Connecticut and a husband and proud father to three young boys.

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3 comments

Sandra Owen May 31, 2016 - 8:47 am

So great to see imagination being encouraged. Bravo!

Reply
Matthew Worwood June 19, 2016 - 12:26 pm

Hello Sandra, thanks for your comment. I hope you enjoyed the film/book. It’s certainly one of the joys of being a parent and I’ll let him know that you watched one of his videos on Coconut Island!

Reply
Kathy Worwood June 5, 2016 - 8:44 pm

Yes Coconut Island began it’s existence as Lucas’s way of keeping me to himself and avoiding interruption of our Skype time together. He would take me [via the iPad] on an imaginary flight to this Island. So anyone else who wanted to talk to me was told they couldn’t as they were in North America and I was on Coconut Island. I am guilty of playing into this concept with the conversations like what we would eat and drink etc. Once I tried to include Liam who kept interrupting by saying he had stowed away on our plane, Lucas replied by continuing my own story with his own ending. He got rid of poor Liam by saying he climbed onto the wing and fell into the sea. When I pretended shock I was told not to worry as he swam back to North America.

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