We’ve been talking a lot about creativity and helping ourselves get creative and why it’s important. For the last post about creativity {for now!} I want to encourage you to help your children be creative.
This might seem strange because most children naturally enjoy pretend play, stories, and art. But there are ways we as adults sometimes hinder their efforts or maybe even keep them from trying something. So here are some tips I’ve learned - sometimes the hard way - with my kids.
Be encouraging. Yes, your 3 year old isn’t going to draw a cat perfectly - or anything resembling a cat. But if you only point out how funny it looks, what he should have done, or ways to improve the next drawing, your child is going to stop wanting to try. Just as we enjoy positive remarks about our attempts at things, we need to encourage our children that just attempting something is a triumph.
Let them try. When my kids are trying something new, I give them space to experiment before I jump in and tell them how they should do it. Failing and seeing what doesn’t work is just as much a part of learning and creating as doing a perfect job. I remember my son getting so frustrated because his block tower kept falling over. But it was because he started with the shortest block and tried to pile the long ones on top. Instead of building a tower for him, I asked him to watch how I started mine. I choose the longest blocks and made a good foundation then built up one level with the short ones. He looked, considered, and then grabbed the long pieces and started again, this time with success. But letting our kids fail at first isn’t bad; it doesn’t make us mean parents. It gives our kids a chance to discover and try and experiment. Who knows, they might come up with a way to do something we would never think of!
Messes happen. There are some activities that I refused for awhile because I didn’t want to mess with the mess. Painting with kids?! No way! Baking? Flour everywhere! But I have since changed my thinking on this. No, we don’t do finger painting everyday but when we do, the joy and excitement and thrill on their faces makes all the paper towel cleanup worth it. Yes, we get flour and sugar and melted butter on every kitchen surface but they really aren’t that much more messy than I am when I cook! Mess is part of life, especially a life with kids. But when you look back on a project or they remember an afternoon of creativity, none of you will remember the mess. You will remember the finished product and joy.
Give them access. We never know what will click with our kids. When they are born, there isn’t a manual that says, ‘This child will enjoy music and paper crafts’ or ‘She loves painting more than writing.’ We have to expose them to different things and see what sticks. In our family, we haven’t found an art project or craft that my oldest daughter doesn’t love and excel at: drawing, coloring, painting, any type of craft, designing. She also enjoys playing piano and writing her own songs. My son likes to paint his own creations but not color in a coloring book, he considers the subject of the craft {superhero or animal} more important than the actual craft, he’s beginning to enjoy music especially his ukulele. But he’s most creative in his pretend play - battling villains, building cities with Legos, playing restaurant. While there are limits to what we can do {time, money, resources} we shouldn’t limit them based on what we would choose them to do.
Teach them how to learn. What I mean by this is sometimes our creativity is unleashed after watching someone else. The reason I started learning handlettering and drawing flowers is because I saw greeting cards on Pinterest that looked nice but doable and I thought it would be fun to try. But just looking at the designs, I had no idea how to recreate them. I checked YouTube and found a channel to subscribe to with great tutorials. But my kids sometimes struggle with the concept of watching someone do a project that they have ideas about. So we’ve been talking about how learning requires listening and after we learn the basic concept of how to do something, we can use our own creativity to expand the original idea. I believe showing our kids the steps and process behind any kind of art helps them learn other subjects and abilities.
Do it together. When my kids were younger, it was obvious that all crafting would be done with me. They needed help cutting, gluing, finding needed materials. I was not about to set them and their imaginations loose with no adult filter of reality. But as they became more independent and more able to function without me, I started drifting off the scene. They still need to ask before using certain things {glitter, paints, stamp pads, Elmer’s glue} but paper, pencils, and scissors are readily available. But it’s amazing how often they want me involved, even if it is something they can do on their own. They want me to watch or they ask what color I would like. So I encourage you to sit with your kids as they create. Even if you aren’t assisting with the process, ask them to explain what they are doing, why they chose those colors or that paper. Let them know that you are interested, that you care about their creative endeavors.
I could go on but we’ll leave it at this for now. The big thing I want to encourage you with is to not be afraid of creativity, in yourself or your kids. Learn something new, try a project, create something together and have fun. You’ll probably see a new side to your kids and maybe even yourself.
Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash