Keep kids creative in summer

With summer here, it’s a wonderful time to explore how we can support the creative activities and brain development that ensures creative growth. Changes in the world around us can make this an impossibility, unless we are committed to nurturing creativity. Below are a few simple guidelines that can help you ensure that your child’s creativity will prosper.

Avoid activities that squash your child’s creativity.

Whether it’s constant social media, playing games on the IPad, TV watching, Xbox video games, regular trips to the theme park, or weekly shopping expeditions, kids are becoming more and more conditioned to expect entertainment. This is probably the single most dangerous threat to your child’s creativity. If they can spend endless hours absorbed in passive entertainment, without active engagement, their creative capacities will suffer.

Creativity must be worked like a muscle.

Kids come into the world with remarkable imaginations and an almost endless capacity for creativity. The more we require conformity to rigid ways of thinking and doing daily life, we can stifle that creativity. The more we feed our children effortless ways to find engagement in the world, the more we stifle creativity.

The key point is this: Creativity requires effort. It’s like a muscle.

Early on, young children love to put forth effort at play. They love to create. They see no ‘mistakes’ and have no judgments about their creations. They simply love to create.

And…the muscle of creativity and skill begins to grow. And sure, for some… it grows faster than others. That’s just life.

But please understand this: It is the exposure and support of these creative activities that builds this muscle that is innate to everyone. If we start to use the phone, the IPad, the TV and other more passive toys to entertain them, we take demand off this creative muscle out of convenience for us…NOT out of what valuable for the child. If not careful, children experience a world where little value is placed on creative expression. If you want creativity to prosper, you must work that muscle.

Expose kids to playtime that requires creativity.

Instead of TV and video games, fill your home with toys and materials that require creativity. Make sure that you have lots of blank paper and crayons, building blocks and LEGOs as well as old-fashioned toys that allow for creating stories that endlessly change and evolve.

Engage kids in creative problem solving around the house.

As kids get older, invite them to help you come up with solutions around the house. When it’s time to plant a new garden, get the family involved. When it’s time to decorate a room, have the kids help. When it’s time to paint a wall, ask them to come up with ideas. When their bicycle chain keeps hopping off its sprocket, rather than fixing it for them, ask them to come up with a solution that could fix the problem.

The common denominator here is to ask. Ask your children for input, ask them for a creative solution. Keep them engaged in a home where creativity is a constant part of the cooperative problem solving that occurs.

Make sure that you notice moments of creativity.

Rather than ignoring them when they’re playing in creative ways or working their imagination, spend a few moments noticing your children doing these activities, especially during their younger years. You must give energy to the activities that you value if you want those characteristics to grow. In the case of creativity, you can do your part by making sure that you catch your kids while they are being creative. Don’t wait until the project is over; catch them while it’s happening.

In this way, you invest your energy in what you really value. This will ensure that you use every ounce of your influence to nurture those creative juices and to keep that muscle strong.

Be the person you want your kids to be.

You cannot escape what you model. If your kids grow up in a home where you model creativity and use your imagination, they can’t help but become a part of this.

Children emulate their parents. It’s just the way it is. You have remarkable influence just through the behavior you model every day to your kids.

Be willing to challenge yourself to remain creatively active in the evenings. Rather than sitting in front of the phone, help stimulate creative play with your kids. Paint. Write. Create a story. Work your own creative muscle...while you engage your kids. Don’t allow for an excuse here. Hold yourself to the creative standard first, and then watch the impact upon your home. Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Park-based parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. His website, www.TerrificParenting.com, offers free parenting guidance and an email newsletter. Readers can learn more by reviewing past articles found on the websites of The Saratogian, The Record and The Community News. Submit questions to DrRandyCale@ gmail.com.