Creativity in Children

“Once a little boy went to school,” is a poetic parable by Helen E. Buckley. The poem is about a little boy who went to school creative and excited to learn, but each thing he tried to do he was told he needed to wait to be shown how to do it. The story ends with the little boy simply recreating what his teacher taught him rather than creating on his own.

Children are born creative. Creativity and curiosity are how we explore the world early in our development. Drawing, singing, playing pretend, imaginative play are the foundation for interacting with the world, but over time being repeatedly told they are doing creativity “wrong” leads to children repressing that innate spark. They are afraid of being wrong.

Art scars as discussed by Anna Mason on Naturestudio.com is a shame-based trigger caused by having your work negatively compared to others. The damaging comments are not intentional. It’s often not something that parents and educators even think about. Conformity in public schools is both by design and by necessity. Children who are too loud, too opinionated, too argumentative are often seen as problems to be handled rather than people to be worked with.

What Can Parents Do?

Recognize “why” you hesitate to let your child create. One fear that parents have is that their children will draw on the walls, will create somewhere other than the designated “Safe” space. That fear is outdated. The formulas for kid’s craft supplies have changed over the years; crayons, markers, paint, etc. are washable. Most of them will come off with a wet rag and some soap. Magic eraser will take off almost everything, and even the dreaded permanent marker may not be as permanent as you fear.

Children’s craft supplies are water based now which makes them easy to clean, but if you’ve gotten something that isn’t it’s easy to figure out how to clean materials based on their compositions.

·       Water based supplies: Clean with soap and water.

·       Alcohol based supplies: Clean with rubbing alcohol.

·       Oil based supplies: Clean with mineral spirits or paint thinner.

The challenge

What did you enjoy creating as a child? I dare you: pick that back up today. Not thinking about it, not listening to the voices that says, “this is dumb, I don’t know what I’m doing.” Just that inner voice that says, “I think this flower should be blue instead of red.” The part of you that created without fear, without restraint, and without control is still in there. I dare you to let it out. GO CREATE SOMETHING!

Then come back and share it with me because I want to see your art.