And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.
Maurice SendakRead
From their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Children use fantasy to cope with their emotions and fears.
In this quote, Maurice Sendak emphasizes how children often face intense emotions such as fear and anxiety as part of their daily lives. He suggests that through the imaginative world of fantasy, children find a way to process and tame these disruptive feelings, using their creativity as a means of catharsis and emotional regulation.
Themes
ChildrenEmotionsFantasyCopingCatharsis
In practice
Example use cases
In a parenting workshop discussing emotional intelligence in kids.
More from Maurice Sendak
All quotes →I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it.
Maurice SendakRead
That always seemed to be the most critical test that a child was confronted with - loss of parents, loss of direction, loss of love. Can you live without a mother and a father?
Maurice SendakRead
One of the few graces of getting old - and God knows there are few graces - is that if you've worked hard and kept your nose to the grindstone, something happens: The body gets old but the creative mechanism is refreshed, smoothed and oiled and honed. That is the grace. That is what's happening to me.
Maurice SendakRead
To get a child's trust - you may know or not - is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults - because adults tell tales and lies all the time.
Maurice SendakRead
I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson so big that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better.
Maurice SendakRead
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