One of my favortie things about homeschooling is that I am able to let my children be who they are and let them use their creativity in all aspects of their education. My children are all so creative in their own way and it’s fun to see that as their mentor and mother! Now you don’t have to homeschool your children to foster your child’s creativity. I am excited to share this great guest post by Alek on How to Foster Your Child’s Creativity!
How to Foster Your Child’s Creativity By Alek M.
One of the most valuable tools that you can teach children is the ability to think outside of the box. To do this, a child needs to develop creativity. Fostering creativity in our children helps them become more balanced people, as they get older, and gives them skills that can be applied to so many different facets of life. Creative thinking helps us to find solutions to our personal and professional problems. It helps us adapt to the world around us, and it provides a much-needed outlet and personal therapy when life gets hard.
One major misconception about creativity is that some children are just born creative, while others are not. This, however, is a load of crock. Children will grow the way you enable them to grow, and creativity is a skill can be helped along, as they grow up. Here are some tips on how to foster your child’s creativity…
Help them explore different outlets of creativity
The great thing about creativity is that there are so many different outlets for it. Whether a person becomes a creative professional, like a writer or musician, in their life, or even if they are just a business manager who needs to think of innovative solutions, the penchant for creative thinking is a skill that will prove useful. For this reason, it is important to help your kids explore a variety of different creative outlets. This doesn’t necessarily mean forcing them to do any particular thing, as this will probably have an adverse affect. However, understand that different creative activities teach different things. The lessons to be found in music may be a lot different than those found in painting.
Create the spaces for them to be creative
Creativity is messy. Just ask any parent with creative children. However, this is something that you need to be okay with, as your kids are growing up (within reason, of course). For this reason, kids need to know that there are certain spaces that are set aside for them to explore their creativity. The outdoors is a place that naturally provides this; to a child, a tree and a branch could just as easily be a castle and sword. However, it’s important to have places inside, as well, whether it is practicing a creative craft or just spaces for play.
Encourage healthy habits
There is a very large misconception that surrounds artists and creative types that one needs to indulge in a lifestyle of self-destruction to truly be doing it properly. However, this is certainly not the case. As a matter of fact, living a healthier lifestyle actually improves your thought process, and can make it easier to engage in a creative way of thinking. For this reason, one part of nurturing creativity in your home is helping your kids develop healthy habits for their hygiene and diet. Encourage physical activity, as it helps gets the endorphins running and helps the mind unwind. On top of this, helping your kids establish healthy eating habits is a good step to take, early on. Skip the junk food!
Don’t incentivize your child’s creativity
This is a tricky one that can get messy, when you are trying to nurture your kids creativity. It’s important not to incentivize creativity. This means giving your kid a type of reward whenever they do something creative. This is contrary to the entire concept of what creativity can be. Creativity, inherently, should be its own reward.
Teach them to never stop nurturing their creativity
As parents, we want to help our kids develop their creativity earlier on. However, like with most life skills, it is not merely something you get and then have. Creative thinking is an aspect of a lifestyle that needs to be constantly practiced, in order to reach one’s true potential. Indeed, you helping your kids develop creativity, offhandedly, helps you develop it in yourself. For this reason, the final lesson here is that you need to teach their kids to never stop nurturing their own creativity, even long after they’ve grown up and moved out. Our modern world has a knack of stamping out creativity, as people get older. However, this world is also a place of transient beauty, and there is infinite number of ways that you can allow it to inspire you to be more creative.
