If I had to choose one word that fascinates me from beginning to end, it is this: CREATIVITY . Creativity is capable of improving all spheres of our life . I would even dare to say that the world can be changed with it .
Throughout this season, I am going to deepen my creativity at all levels, because I firmly believe that we can all be creative , and that this facet can help us a lot to function better in our day-to-day lives.
Today, I am going to focus on the little ones in the house. I am going to tell you ten keys to enhance children’s creativity . But, before that, let me explain a couple of totally wrong beliefs on this topic, which are necessary to understand everything that comes next.
Dismantling erroneous beliefs about creativity.
We can all be creative . This is a phrase that I have repeated ad nauseam. But sometimes many people don’t believe in themselves because they don’t consider themselves creative . Why? Because there are wrong beliefs about creativity . So, I want you to know that this sentence is totally true. You just have to trust yourself. We can do much more than we think a priori.
→ The first erroneous belief is to attribute creativity to a group of “chosen”, “privileged” or “geniuses” . It is true that there are certain people who can be born with a natural talent for something in particular. Or even, within the same family, we can observe a clear genetic predisposition towards a certain discipline. But, that “creativity you have or you don’t have” is completely false. We can all learn to enhance and develop it. Of course, not all of us develop it to the same degree, nor in the same areas of knowledge, nor in all facets of life. And it is that each person is different. Each one is motivated and likes different things.
→ The second wrong belief is equating creativity with artistic creativity . Of course, art, in all its breadth, is a fairly creative discipline. For this reason, when we think of talent or creativity, in many cases, great figures from the artistic world come to mind. But, there are more areas of knowledge. And therefore, we have to consider creativity in a broad sense, since it is present in all facets of life.
Ten keys to enhance children’s creativity.
In general, children have an easier time than adults to develop creativity . Basically, because at an early age, luckily, they live outside the conventions, criticisms and prejudices, with which adults live every day . Obviously, when children grow up and become aware of all this, they also limit their creativity for fear of being ridiculed, criticized, not accepted, what they will say, etc.
Therefore, when it comes to working on creativity with children, the younger they are, the better. Being alien, for the moment, to that adult world of conventions and prejudices, they will be able to let their imagination and creativity flow freely. In addition, they will be able to develop solid self-esteem and greater security, laying a foundation that will help them face the world when they are older.
Here are ten keys to encourage creativity in children :
- Create a pleasant and trusting work environment , both at school and at home, in which the child does not feel constantly judged, evaluated and criticized. Sometimes some parents and teachers give more importance to grades and results, leaving effort, imagination, originality or the possibility of making mistakes in the background. This is detrimental to creativity. The child has to perceive an environment in which they do not feel fear of being judged and in which they have room to make mistakes.
- Learn from mistakes and avoid perfectionism. In my case, since I was little I have been a very perfectionist. I was not allowed to make mistakes. And this has not been a good learning experience. In my adulthood, life has taught me that things are not perfect, and I have had to unlearn this way of seeing things. All of this has made me a much more creative person. Therefore, it is very important that we work with the children on the errors or the mistake as something necessary for their learning. Let’s stop labeling it as something bad or negative.
- Create an environment full of stimuli and motivations, so that he learns, by himself, to observe, manipulate and experiment. This will boost your creativity. For example, in some schools, the classroom is distributed by learning zones. In each one, materials from a different discipline are placed. Thus, the children will gradually try the area of mathematics, language, social sciences, natural sciences, art, music, gymnastics, etc. This can also be done at home, online stem classes also is effecting way to improve your children’s creativity and problem solving skills .In this way, there will be children who, for example, will choose at first to discover the area of mathematics, and perhaps, later, to experiment with the area of music. They do not have to feel the same interest in all disciplines, in the same way that we adults. But, it is about giving them opportunities to develop different learning,
- Allow children to give free rein to their imagination , avoiding unnecessarily restricting it . Sometimes, with simple activities for children , such as making a free drawing or building a story in a group, we can let our own and original ideas and thoughts flow. It is important to open your mind and give way to these types of more flexible activities, and not always work with rigid exercises in which everything is predefined and planned.
- Encourage divergent thinking and flexibility . Surely you have ever heard that we have two cerebral hemispheres. The left is related to logic, linear and sequential thinking. The law is often linked to creativity. It works with a global perception, the thought is not sequential or linear, it can go jumping and present itself in an unstructured way. Unleash imagination and intuition. This flexibility of thought opens our minds, and therefore, will allow us to analyze, explore, discover and create new and original things, or even transform those that already exist by giving them new uses.
- Respect them and be tolerant of their opinions and ideas , even the most outlandish ones. We must not stop that natural spontaneity that the little ones have. In this sense, it is very interesting to “brainstorm” with the children. This creative technique can be used, for example, to resolve a conflict in the classroom, find the solution to a children’s experiment , propose different uses of an everyday object, etc.
- Surprise them with new and original activities and ideas, both at home and at school, to be their creative role models . It helps, from time to time, to get a little out of the school schedule or the usual routines at home. Children imitate their reference adults. If we behave creatively, they will too .
- Let them take the initiative and do things on their own. Trust them, their abilities and skills . This will give them self-confidence, it will improve their self-esteem, their autonomy, their spontaneity and their curiosity. Thanks to this, they will have greater motivation to learn and create new things.
- Encourage sensory development . What our little ones observe in the world around them, reaches their brain in the form of sensations and perceptions. This leads them to develop cognitive functions. That is, attention, memory, reasoning, language, imagination, creativity, etc. For this reason, I recommend doing sensory activities and crafts with the little ones , since they are very beneficial in the development of different learning.
- Play with metaphors, analogies, hypotheses, and probabilities . This in addition to enhancing their creativity, helps them to develop comprehensive learning, and not purely rote. And ultimately, it will turn them into active subjects, who think and feel, and not into mere passive subjects.
And so far today’s post and our review of children’s creativity . We will continue talking about this topic. But, for now, I hope that these keys help you when it comes to working on creativity with your children or your students.
Author Bio
Name – Archana Agarwal
Bio –Archana Agarwal is a Postgraduate in International Management from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, an Entrepreneur, a proud mother to a 7-year-old, and Founder- CEO of Aark Learnings a leading online educational platform that provides skill-based holistic education and experiential learning to the new generation kids which help in their growth and overall development