4 Ideas That Encourage Children's Creativity
Sitting in a classroom seven hours a day and listening passively to lectures doesn’t do much to encourage your child’s creativity.
To build your child’s creative faculties, you must try not to limit their ideas. Give them several tools and toys to play with and try to focus on the process rather than giving them deadlines for projects. Encourage them to ask questions too.
Let’s read on to find out how we can encourage our children’s creativity so they can think out of the box and grow up with innovative thoughts!
1. Validate Frustration
When trying to learn something new, your child will inevitably get frustrated at some point. You must validate their feelings to enhance their emotional growth and so that as they mature, they can learn to identify and manage their emotions better.
As they get encouragement, they will also be motivated to try again. Try to tell them that their frustration is okay and that it’s a part of the creative process. Here are some ways you can make them feel better:
- Be present: Let them know that you’re there for them. If your child has a perfectionist nature, try to stick to emotion-free phrases like “I’m right here with you.” This will prevent feelings of shame and negativity.
- Reflect on what they tell you.
- Try to read their minds about what they must be thinking or feeling.
- Tell them their feelings are normal.
- Respect how they feel.
2. Learn to Love Crap
By crap, we mean stuff like the empty cardboard boxes from Amazon and leftover craft paper from school activities. Learn to save this stuff so that you can use it in different creative activities with the little ones.
It may drive your partner nuts, but kids will find all kinds of fun stuff to do with all this extra cardboard, paper, tape, etc. Besides, you’ll be doing something good for the environment by recycling!
Use some of your leftover cardboard boxes to make a little display of a small city by painting the boxes like buildings. You could also create a vase or stack up some boxes together to make a tiny kitchen for your toddler!
3. Teach them Problem-Solving Skills
Many adults these days don’t even have good problem-solving skills. It’s good to start young and teach your kids that there are many ways to solve a problem.
A 2010 study found that children with poor problem-solving skills have a higher chance of suffering from depression and suicidality. Conversely, building these skills can help develop mental health.
Firstly, your child should be made to understand that avoiding the problem won’t make it go away. Secondly, you should guide them to the following steps whenever they find themselves in the muck and having a tough time making a decision:
Identifying the problem
By pinpointing the problem, your kid will start to understand what needs to be worked on. Focus on saying the problem out loud, e.g., “The kids won’t play with me during recess.”
Brainstorm at least five solutions
Encourage the brainstorming process and don’t criticize any wrong ideas. Encourage them to use their creativity and even consider far-fetched solutions.
Help them come up with solutions if they’re struggling. By carrying out this activity, they’ll understand that creativity can help solve their problems.
List the Pros and Cons of each Solution
Weigh the positives and negatives of each solution and see which one is more beneficial.
Pick a Solution
Encourage them to be decisive and select something finally.
See What Happens
Suppose the solution works out, great. If it doesn’t, use another idea from the list you devised.
An essential step in this process is not to always rush to your child’s aid and hand them some ready-made solutions on a platter.
You must let them exercise their mental capacity to solve problems. This will encourage them to think creatively.
If they can’t come up with the solution, then you can jump in. But before that, let them use their minds.
4. Let them Make Mistakes
Children aren’t supposed to be perfect. If you don’t let them make mistakes freely, they’ll feel limited and censored.
Hobby and fun times will become a chore, and they may become afraid to try new things.
Failure is a necessary part of success.
Today’s education system penalizes and punishes failure, which in turn teaches children to avoid it.
He who avoids failure also avoids success.
I stumbled across a TikTok video of a successful woman entrepreneur (hard to find it again). Still, she was being interviewed and explained that her dad would encourage her to do something every day that she was ‘terrible’ at.
And every day when they got back from school, his dad would ask her and her brother, what did you fail miserably at today?
And so they would ramble and laugh about how they sang in front of the class, and it went terrible or volunteered to do a gymnast trick and completely flopped.
But if she hadn’t got anything, her dad would be genuinely disappointed.
She mentioned that that behavior from her dad switched the perspective and meaning about ‘failure’ completely.
In her eyes, failing was ‘not trying.’
Doing it wrong was just a part of it, but being afraid to try because you’ll do it wrong was the real failure..’
Failing is a part of success; people who avoid failure also avoid success.
What Helps to Encourage Creativity
You can encourage your child’s creativity by enhancing their curiosity about things like culture, art, and history. Let them play creative games that double as learning tools. Additionally, limit their screen time and push them to pick up a fun book. Books enhance our imagination and boost our creative thinking powers.
Children are inherently curious about how everything works. It’s essential to tap into this using informative stuff so that you can capture their interest where it matters most.
For example, take them to museums or historic and recreational places to learn more about the environment and history.
Moreover, engage them with games that stimulate their thinking capacities. Games that help build coordination, self-expression, etc., are the best for your child’s growth and creativity.
On top of this, don’t snub their creativity by criticizing their ideas. Children who are afraid to fail won’t think creatively.
Perhaps offer them some constructive advice about how they can improve their idea, but don’t make it sound like their thoughts are dumb.
Sometimes, leave them to their own devices and let them explore their interests freely. By placing no task constraints on them, they’ll be able to get up to anything they like.
The Importance of Promoting Creativity in Early Childhood Education
Creativity encourages self-expression, which can enhance children’s emotional health. Creativity also nourishes problem-solving skills in children because it allows them to come up with new solutions and promotes analytical thinking, i.e., helps them come up with new ways to do tasks and meet challenges.
Through creativity, children also become more open-minded because they know there are different perspectives to everything. When they’re taught to ask questions and think of creative answers, they learn to look at things in a new light.
Creativity allows communication to flourish.
When children are encouraged to question things, they learn how to put their thoughts into words better.
Additionally, creativity increases emotional intelligence. Creative outlets allow children a means to express and deal with their emotions, making them more equipped to deal with them.
Moreover, when kids are encouraged to create things on their own, their self-confidence increases. Carrying out activities like painting and drawing also improves kids’ fine motor skills.
And, last but not least, creativity is fun!
With the stresses of school and society, it’s nice to have an outlet where kids can express themselves freely and fulfilling without fear of judgment and have a good time while doing it.
Conclusion
To sum up, creativity is an essential tool that makes your child more emotionally intelligent, develops their motor skills, and boosts their confidence.
Wimzee is a marketplace that is centered around bringing this creativity into your child’s life.
Our expert creative instructors will work with your kids one-on-one to develop their passions towards activities like skateboarding, DJ-ing, and other fun stuff they like!
We hope this post encourages you to implement some of that creativity at home.
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