We all admire creative kids. Kids who paint, draw, sing, act, or play an instrument. We also admire kids who are creative with solutions, like the ones who see a child in need and organize a garage sale to help the child, or who feel sorry for kids without shoes and get the whole community involved in providing shoes for under-privileged children. I even admire the middle school kids who wanted to earn money but were too young for a job who decided to turn their 8 years of experience in playing soccer into hosting soccer camps for young children.
These children all show a creative way to express themselves, whether it is through fine arts or through creative responses to problems. Most of us would like to foster this in our own children. The question is, how?
There are two main points to keep in mind here:
- Every child is different and expresses themselves in unique ways.
Every child is different, and has a different way to respond creatively. For example, read a group of five children a story, then ask them to respond to the story. One might draw a picture, one might put on a puppet show, one might write a short story, one might want to talk about it, and the other might re-enact the whole story as drama.
- Know the personality of your child, and how they tend to respond to situations/problems.
- Encourage your child to pursue a different way of approaching problems. However, too much pressure can cause undue stress.
- Learn to see the everyday creativity in your child.
2. We must give our children "room" for creative responses.
Every child is different, and has a different way to respond creatively. For example, read a group of five children a story, then ask them to respond to the story. One might draw a picture, one might put on a puppet show, one might write a short story, one might want to talk about it, and the other might re-enact the whole story as drama.
All children need space to be creative. This is both a literal and figurative statement. Literal in the fact that children need dedicated creative space. This can be a shelf for art supplies, books, building material, or an enitre room dedicated to creative play.
The figurative meaning is far more important, however. Figurative space means time. It is hard to respond creatively if you are never given opportunity to come up with solutions to problems. If every minute of every day is planned out for a child, he can lose the ability to think creatively. This is also true if every problem is solved for a child. Children need time to consider solutions on their own, and encouragement that they are capable of thinking through things.
- Have dedicated creative space - a shelf of art supplies, a closet of craft materials, etc..
- Give your child time to think through problems. Encourage her to talk it out with you, but do not "solve" the problem for her.
- If your child gets stuck , use leading questions to help guide him, such as "I wonder what would happen if you..", or "How would you go about doing that".
- Try to help your child pursue her course of action, even if you know it will not work. Again, offer guidance, but let your child make her own mistakes (obviously, only small ones, and ones that will not result in any kind of injury).
- Offer a lot of encouragement - creative people make a lot of mistakes. Keep trying!
- Be sure to recognize your child's efforts, even if his idea of creativity is not your own.
Most important is to give your child time and encouragement when it comes to creativity. Creative kids can become creative adults. Creativity is a life-long asset worth cultivating in our children.
