Get Creative with Your Kids!

Everyone wants to have a brilliant child who excels at everything he puts his mind to… but how many of us realize that at the root of brilliance lies creativity?
When we think about creativity, most of us think about art, music, writing, acting and other artistic pursuits… and these are indeed true expressions of creativity. But the essence of creativity lies in the ability to find a new solution to a problem, to create something from what seems to amount to nothing. While great artists and writers are truly creative, so
are brilliant engineers and groundbreaking doctors. So even if you don’t want your child go into acting, it can pay off to encourage his creativity in even the simplest elements of play.
Babies and toddlers
It may seem strange to think that babies can be creative, but they are building their impression of the world through their play. To encourage the creative impulse, let your baby or toddler play without too much interference. You may be completely convinced that your toddler’s book is meant to be read, but it won’t do you any harm to let him stack his blocks on it, if that’s what he wants to do. There is nothing wrong with showing a child how to play with a particular toy, but if he wants to do something unique with it… let him! Too much interference in a child’s playtime teaches him to be dependent upon you and pushes him into traditional thinking far too early. Don’t insist that there is a “right way” to play.
Be careful when choosing your child’s toys. Most battery-operated toys are meant to be watched, not played with. It’s okay to get an occasional one, but kids learn a lot more by banging out sounds on a mechanical piano rather than pushing a button that plays a perfect rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ Often the simplest toys provide the most stimulation. A set of blocks can serve as building material for dollhouses, animal stalls, pyramids and a thousand other things.
Encourage your child to explore his world. Babies who never roll around on the floor may be cleaner, but they are captive – give your baby space to learn about his surroundings. Make sure he’s safe while he’s exploring, but otherwise, try not to interfere.
Preschoolers
Reading to your preschooler is about the best thing you can do for him. By opening up a world of books, you give him food for his imagination. And when he grabs the book himself and wants to tell his own story, let him, even if his story seems exaggerated to you. Even if he only wants to look at the pictures in the book and resists being told the story, his mind is open and working. Television is pretty much the opposite. While it’s difficult in this day and age of satellite TV, limiting television viewing is important, as is helping your children choose programming – making sure that at least some of it includes “educational shows” like those about wildlife or science. It’s almost as if kids slip into a trance when they watch cartoons. By turning off the TV, you break them out of it and make them find some entertainment for themselves. You can try encouraging your child to pretend to be Tom, chasing Jerry, rather than watching it for a change.
Encouraging creativity takes work and involvement on the parents’ part. It’s a lot easier to let kids watch TV or play computer games than sit down and color with your child for a while or read him a story. But set aside some time each day to do something with your child that gets his mind engaged.
Listening to your child is also critical. While you may have a million other things on your mind, those first flights of fancy that your child takes when he begins to realize that he can make up stories, just like those he reads in books, are priceless. One way to reinforce the value of these homemade stories is to write them down for your child. You can use an ordinary copybook or notebook and have your child dictate his story to you. Some children like to illustrate their stories, too.
School children
Once kids go to school, they will be formally introduced to “the arts.” And of course, not all kids will excel in them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t creative. If your child hates drawing or composition writing, try encouraging him to develop other creative problem solving skills.
Often we find that education and creativity are two very different things but even if the school tends to emphasize rigid traditional learning, you can help your child take an occasional flight of fancy when you help with homework. If you’re memorizing dates and places of historical events, ask your child an off-the-wall question every once in a while – for example, what would have happened if Amr ibn al-’Aas hadn’t managed to conquer Egypt? Or what would Egypt be like if we still lived like the Pharaohs did? What kind of food would we be eating? What sort of transportation would we use? This sort of creative questioning can help your child develop an appetite for learning while developing his ability to evaluate information at the same time. Science can be approached the same way. Kids studying different forms of energy production can imagine a world with no fossil fuels – what changes would that bring?
When your child comes home with a composition to write, don’t act as if it’s a disaster. Treat the assignment as an opportunity for your child to express his own ideas. What ever you do, don’t write it for him! You can brainstorm with your child as a way to get him to express himself, but don’t take over the project.
Around the house, you can engage your child in creative problem solving. Even things like finding new solutions for how to arrange the toy shelves involve creativity – challenge your child with finding a better way to do something, but give him a task that he can accomplish. Don’t assign him to rearrange his entire room. Instead, ask him to find a better way to shelve the books, for example.
Cooking can be a way to open up your child’s creativity, too. Kids love to make things in the kitchen and one fun activity is to make a cookbook of the creations that your kids come up with – complete with directions and measurements.
Create opportunities for creativity
Make creating simple. Always have supplies on hand.
For younger children:
· Dress up clothes, hats, ties, scarves, capes
· Art supplies including child-safe scissors, crayons, colored pencils and lots of scrap paper (keep the messier stuff out of reach for times when you can supervise). Odds and ends from the house can sometimes spark a creative instinct – empty kitchen towel rolls, spare buttons, cardboard boxes, fabric scraps… the list is endless!
· Clay or play dough and utensils to shape and cut it (you will probably want to establish an accepted play area for this activity to avoid messes)
· Beads, and yarn to string them with
· Musical instruments – these can be simple, like a whistle or a drum or a rattle made out of a samna can
For older children:
· A special copybook to scribble ideas (a journal might be a good choice)
· Art supplies including paint, markers, old magazines that can be cut up, glue and paper
· Hobby supplies (these might include a wood working set, crocheting equipment, stamp collecting – or any other kind of collection)
Show off your child’s creativity
Be proud of whatever your child creates. You can encourage your child to make cardboard frames for his artwork to hang on the wall or choose some of his favorites to put on your fridge.
Don’t disparage your child’s efforts to understand how things work – if he takes apart a toy to see what makes it go and then can’t get it back together, he may have ruined the toy, but he may have also taken the first step towards the College of Engineering!