Have you purchased a "self-help" book lately? A motivational tape? How about an ebook about "achieving success"? What do they have in common?

Nine times out of ten you're given the same instruction, "Visualize". "See yourself 10 lbs. lighter" or "See yourself as CEO of Acme Industries". To visualize is to see and to visualize in the mind's eye is to IMAGINE. It's the alpha tool of possibilities and, often, the springboard to accomplishment.

Today's parents have all kinds of options to occupy their kids' busy day. CDs, videos, low-tech, high-tech toys and even, the computer. The drawback? Kids participate in a passive mode or by repetitive tasks. Sadly, imagination is not an important component.

So what to do?

Open the door to potential.

Parents are the first teachers in the most formative years of a child's life. With a little effort, a little planning and a bit of time, parents can plant the seeds to a creative imagination. How? Read books to your kids!

The process of reading aloud is dynamic. It offers the child the opportunity to combine the spoken word with imagery...images not created by someone else, but uniquely created in the mind of that child.

How to begin? Start with picture books. They're the "training wheels". They introduce kids to shapes and colors and context. Illustrated books are a great way for children to see the relationship of words to images, albeit, someone else's images.

The next step? Books with no illustrations. Read aloud. This experience switches your kids into an active mode of visualization. They process the words and create the images. All it takes is your participation.

Practice makes perfect. The more often you read to your kids, the more often they have the opportunity to develop their mind skills. They create the images, they organize the images, they sort the images, they categorize the images, they recall and visualize the images…they imagine!

Somewhere, sometime, someone visualized converting chemical energy into electrical energy and, today, we have the battery. Someone, somewhere visualized a fabric stronger than steel. Today we have kevlar. Someone imagined a diseased heart being replaced by a healthy heart. Today we have heart transplants. Imagination is the key. Plant the garden.

Here are some suggestions:

• Choose a book to read to your kids that YOU like. If you're enthusiastic about it, chances are, the kids will be too.
• Plan ahead. Set aside a reading time that's quiet and with few distractions (turn off the cell phone).
• Pressed for time? Purchase books via the computer. Get the kids to help you browse. And consider downloading ebooks. They're often less expensive than hard cover books. You can download immediately to read on the computer and you can store the files on your hard disk or removable media device to create a library of your own to read and reread when you choose.
• Take the kids to your local library. Let them do the choosing.
• Check out your local bookstores (and public library) for scheduled "book reading" days for kids. Great fun.

Patricia Gresham is a free-lance commercial artist and graphic designer, author and educator, wife, mother and grandmother. She is currently the publisher of the family website DoodleDuds Depot.

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