My son...the astronaut. I do not know how this came about, but at some point during the last few weeks of school last June, Logan became obsessed with building a spaceship and travelling to outer space with his pals, Ethan and Christopher. Apparently, there is a nasty storm happening right now on Jupiter, and these budding scientists are worried that it may get out of hand and destroy the earth. The fate of the planet is in their hands (and their pets).
At first, the constant chatter and planning of this space mission was so sweet. Logan talked and talked and planned every day for this adventure. He made diagrams of how to build the rocket, lists of what food he needed to bring, emergency supplies and so on and so on. But then I realized, that this was going beyond imaginative play, and he was very serious that he needed to get into space. He started asking daily if we could please go to the building centre, and buy his supplies because this needed to be accomplished before summer was over, to the point that he was near tears or angry, when I tried to explain, that they don't sell rocket ship supplies on Bowen. I suggested we find some big cardboard boxes, and make a pretend ship first for practice. This made him very upset, and the obvious anxiety he was feeling towards getting this spaceship built was starting to build. When I tried to explain, that building rocket ships and becoming an astronaut meant going to a special school when you're an adult, he became very irrate, upset and heart broken. It made me feel terrible. Did I do the right thing? Where do you draw the line between allowing their imaginations to run wild, and bringing them back down to earth (pun intended).
He stopped talking about the rocketship shortly before school started, as we were very busy with end of summer activities. It has started up again, now that he is in kindergarten, however, he seems to be using this 'story' more to reel in new friends. One of the first things he does, when meeting someone new is tell them about the spaceship he wants to build, and then asks if they would like to join him. He then comes home, and adds their name to the ever growing list and explains to me the special skill each of his new friends brings to the mission.
Did I do the right thing, or should I have continued down the make believe path, and come up with a new excuse every day, why we were not pulling out the welding materials and scrap metal to construct a space craft. Comments welcome.
