How Do You Teach Your Child to Be Creative?
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Modern sciences tells us that to a significant degree, we wire our own brains. So how does the brain get wired for creativity? Why are some people more creative than others? Can we teach creativity?
To the latter two questions, some people will always be "more" than others—let's not put our attention there—and, contrary to what many experts believe, creativity cannot be taught.
Creativity is not a skill that someone can teach us, such as we might learn critical thinking skills from a logic teacher or how to play the piano from a piano teacher, because creativity is more like curiosity.
We can't teach a child to be curious because children are born curious, but we can teach a child not to be curious. We do this very successfully in school where children learn to curb their questions or stop asking them at all.
And what a tragedy because curiosity is at the root of creativity and creativity is at the root of genius.
Do you ever wonder what great contributions to the world and to humanity have we missed because of our factory school model?
“I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers. ”
According to the late scientist, George Land, we can also teach children not to be creative, yet, without creativity, there is no genius.
Creative people are curious about the external world, the internal world, and the world of possibility. Creative people connect unrelated ideas to form an original idea. They find solutions to problems that others can't see. They imagine what could be and bring it to life.
They are the creators.
But curiosity can’t be all a child needs because all healthy children are born curious. Enter George Land, who did a creativity study for NASA, and what came out of that study was the realization that 98% of children have imaginations that operate in the zone of genius, until they go to school.
“I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”
But that study was conducted in the 1968. A lot has changed since then, and, besides the problem of school, there are a lot of other factors contributing to dull minds.
So how do we get it right today? Consider that your child is like a garden you want to grow, so you have fresh vegetables, fruits, and flowers.
You have cleared the ground, prepared the soil, created rows, and planted seeds according to kind.
But that's not all that’s required of you to produce a vibrant, healthy garden. You have to water the plants, make sure they get the right amount of sunshine, and sometimes shade, and make sure the soil has the right combination of minerals to nurture the plant.
Children, like plants, also need the right kind of environment in order for their creativity to bloom and blossom. Let's look at a few of the many ways in which you can adjust your child's environment to help nurture his creativity.
1. BE THERE
Science tells us that stress kills creativity. I know this is true, and I'm sure you do too. It's difficult to be creative when we have a lot of stress because our energy goes towards dealing with overwhelming challenges in order to meet our basic needs and responsibilities. What time is there left for being creative?
Children also experience stress. It's critical to their neurological and emotional development that they feel safe, loved, and cared for. Children need a home environment that meets these needs, which means that they also need us.
The worst environment for a young child is daycare, preschool, kindergarten, first grade, and even second grade, according to an analysis of approximately 8000 early childhood studies conducted by Dr. Raymond Moore in the 1970s.
One of the many things he discovered is that if children are kept out of school until they are about age ten, they will experience better mental and emotional health. Let me take the liberty of adding that common sense dictates they will be more creative too.
2. FREE TO ROAM
Unstructured play is critical for raising a child who is creative. Play-based programs are not bad but they are not beneficial either, unless you need a break. And, let's be honest, it isn't easy raising children without extended family help. Some of us need more breaks than others, and that's okay.
Structured play found in programs deprives children of the kind of play that comes from within, which is the best kind for developing creativity. As long as you aren't about to pull your hair out, I'd opt for unstructured play over play programs.
Play serves many purposes, all of which are fundamental to the healthy development of a child, and one of them is developing the imagination which make-believe play nurtures.
For example, a child can turn a box into a castle and he will see a castle, he won't see a box. The last thing we want to do is to tell him to "put the box away!" Children encounter problems in their free play which they need to solve. All problems require creative solutions to solve them.
3. STAY OUT OF THE WAY
A child who can help himself should always be encouraged to help himself. Say your child decides that he wants to draw a bird, but every time he draws the bird he messes up the bird's beak. Now he whines from frustration. You don't want to step in and help him.
Let him learn to work through his frustration now rather than getting into the habit of falling apart when things don't go the way he wants them too.
“Parents should not agonize over anything a child does or fails to do if the child is perfectly capable of agonizing over it himself.”
Habits like "easy-to-get-frustrated" are not easy to break as adults, and they will get in the way of your child's ability to function in a healthy, productive way as an adult.
Tough love means being willing to let our children experience uncomfortable emotions, so they learn to accept them as part of life's journey without losing hope and giving up too soon. How else will they be able to accomplish anything?
4. Rhymes, Rhymes, and More Rhymes
Read rhymes to your children and play rhyming games with them to build their creativity muscle. You say a word or sentence and they have to find a word or sentence that it rhymes with.
Fairy tales will also stimulate a child's imagination, especially if the book contains few to no illustrations.
Children love picture books, and these kind of books have their place, but without the pictures, children use their imaginations to conjure up the scene in their mind. This also makes reading more enjoyable for them.
Have you ever read a book and then watched the film it was based on? There is nothing worse than having a perfectly imagined character in your mind, only to have Hollywood ruin it for you. After that, you will always see the Hollywood actor, never your original creation.
5. A NO-BRAINER
If you've been reading my weekly blog posts, you know what I am going to say next don't you?
Absolutely no screens for your budding genius! Nothing will kill a child's memory, imagination, or curiosity faster than screen use.
The bad news is that if all of their friends are using screens, you may not want to become the "problem" parent. I don't recommend it because the screen becomes the forbidden apple, and your kids will flock to them as soon as they get the chance.
When I was young, my mother threw out all of the white sugar in the house. I used to go to my best friend's horse and eat sugar from the sugar bowl. You don't want your children doing this with screens.
The good news is that if you are able to recruit other parents or find parents whose children are screen-free, then your children will think a screen-free childhood is what's normal. Sadly, it isn't, but they don't need to know this right now.
Did you know that there are many young adults now who are disappointed with their parents for letting them have screens and phones when they were younger?
Please, please, please don't let your child be one of them!
If you follow the guidelines here, your children will be developmentally ahead of most of their peers who are in school and using screens, and they'll be well on their way to living a more productive and enriching life.
Get a copy of Liz’s “could not live without” book, Education’s Not the Point: How Schools Fail to Train Children’s Minds and Nurture Their Characters with groundbreaking Essays on educating your kids by John Taylor Gatto, Dorothy Sayers, and Liz herself.
About Elizabeth Y. Hanson
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a “whole” child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Liz is a homeschooling thought-leader, as well as the creator of three unique online courses, Raise Your Child Well: Preserving Your Child's Natural Genius by Laying a Solid Foundation During the First Seven Years; the Smart Homeschooler Academy, educating children who are brilliant, happy, and well-socialized; and How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Liz has 23 years of experience guiding parents through the amazing journey of raising and educating their children.
Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.
