Monday, May 16, 2016

Let Children be Children: 6 Common Creative Killers


Many parents try to be perfect, but sometimes their best intentions can backfire without them even realizing it. Based on Victoria Wilson’s book Boost Your Child’s Creativity (2010), here are 6 common habits which can stifle child’s desire and ability to be creative:

Creative Killer #1: Helping

Young children often find it frustrating when they are learning something new. They can’t quite work out how to make their tree look right, or they hold the pen the wrong way up. But it pays dividends to sit back and let them carry on with whatever they are trying to do. If you insist on showing them exactly how to draw a tree, you’re denying them the opportunity to find their own way of drawing it, and to experiment and learn things on their own. You’re also inadvertently setting them up for failure – their tree isn’t going to be as good as yours, they are not going to be able to use pen as easily as you. This can make them feel even more frustrated. Your child will only gain confidence if you give them the opportunity to prove to themselves they can do somethings without your help.

Creative Killer #2: The Wrong Toys

Most houses have them, they toys with bright colours, flashing lights, a variety of songs and perhaps some Beethoven to help them learn the alphabet. Toys like these are fun, and have their benefits, but in terms of encouraging your child to be imaginative, they are creativity killers. Children really do stretch their imaginations further if they are making up their own songs, or playing with a cardboard cut-out sword rather than a flashing light sabre.

Creative Killer #3: Deciding What is Right and Wrong

 By telling a child the ‘right’ way to paint the rainbow, or that it’s ‘wrong’ when they bang all the keys on the piano at once, you are limiting your child’s early experiments. Picasso’s cubist artwork did not fit with the aesthetic standards of conventional art at the time and modern classical music might seem out of key and harsh to most listeners. Yet art and music critics have come to applaud these expressions of creativity which fall outside the norm by conventional standards. Creativity is all about thinking outside the normal rules and dreaming up new ways of doing things. This is exactly what your child is doing when he draws the world upside down or when she colours the sea pink.

Creative Killer #4: Planning Their Time

Children definitely need routine and structure in their day, but do be wary of planning your child’s time too rigidly. Try to allow time each day for ‘unstructured play’ where your child can choose his or her own activities freely and, where possible, be a little flexible in cancelling other scheduled activities if your child is really involved in what they are doing. If your child is thoroughly absorbed, they are probably contented and learning a good deal.

Creative Killer #5: Right Answer Syndrome

Children love to do things well and win approval, but beware of cultivating a need in your child to get things ‘right.’ One of the key traits of creative people is that they are good at ‘divergent thinking’, which means they can suggest lots of different potential answers of solutions to a puzzle or question. Of course, sometimes there is only one right answer. But try to present your child with situations and tests where they can learn that sometimes there are lots of different correct answers, and that different people’s responses are all equally valid.

Creative Killer #6: Competition

There is fierce debate amongst the educationalists about whether competition is good for children. When it comes to creativity, however, studies such as those by Professor Teresa Amabile at Brandeis University suggest that competition can negatively influence creativity. Competition automatically infers that judgement is being made over the creative product, which can make the child less willing to take risks and be inventive. In addition, Amabile and many other psychologists argue that children should be encouraged to enjoy creativity simply because it is an enjoyable and fulfilling process, not as a means to win contests or rewards. Much research suggests that rewarding a child simply for doing something creative eventually lessens their interest in doing creative activities for which they are not rewarded.

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