How do you encourage creativity with your kids?

I don't mean to take credit for my kids' creative nature. My oldest is particularly creative. But I think the best thing I've done for them in this regard is to do nothing. I know that sounds weird.

I mean, I do some things. I limit commercial exposure. I read a lot of books to them. I boycott battery-operated toys, with a few exceptions. When I buy a toy, I expect it to last for years, not only for quality but also for appeal. I strive to buy toys that are very simple and open-ended. And then I leave them alone in their own space.

I do not entertain them, although I do occasionally participate in a game. Sometimes, we dance together too. I do not give play suggestions or correct their play (unless someone's getting hurt). I do not try to teach them how to use their imagination, although I might do small things like pretend to drink an imaginary cup of tea that someone's brought me. I don't want to put too many ideas in their heads, because they are not their thoughts and then they are just copying someone else's imagination, rather than developing their own.

I am very hands-off. I occasionally visit their play world, but I don't live there. With the exception of one Gymboree class that they take together, I avoid toddler/preschool classes. They spend the vast majority of their time at home (we're all introverts, though, it should be said).

We all probably look at our parenting styles and practices and feel really confident about a few things. I feel really confident and pleased about the fact that my kids get loads of unstructured, untimed free time with no one telling them how to use it. I don't believe creativity can be taught. It can be cultivated and this is how I think I've helped cultivate it with my kids.

With Abi I don't sit down and encourage it persay. I just try to provide a "yes" environment so she can find ways to be creative. Yes I do get out the paints for her about once a week or whenever she asks. However she does the most amazing things with what she finds in her environment. I imagine one day she'll be one of those artists who makes things out of trash. :LOL She can link all kinds of things together with linkadoos. Her most recent thing is gift wrap tape. I bought a value pack of tape rolls and within a week she had gone through all of them. I was kinda : because she found every last roll of tape that I had stashed in odd places. But I was amazed at her creativity with it. One day she took a flat from Nitara's pediatric formula and she taped all kinds of things to it. Then she put a mesh bag over it. Another time she taped every single marker that she owns together in a long string. Now that was fun to undo.

We provide opportunities to be creative. We encourage her imagination.

My dd dictates stories to me which I type and print out. I read them back to her. I think doing that and hearing her own stories is as important as reading books.

I encourage my dd to figure things out instead of telling her the answer.
I ask her questions. I listen to her answers. I don't tell her she is wrong.

Sometimes dd thinks of a new use for something and I don't tell her that it must be used my way instead.

I encourage her to try challenging things.

We provide access to paper, an easel, clay, playdoh, pencils, markers, crayons, paint, and blocks.

We don't use coloring books or worksheets very much.

We don't have a lot of electronic toys.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/flm97/pdf/fs06.pdf
http://www.leapfrog.com/do/finditem?...=ar_creativity

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Hey, I have a Benji too!

Yeah, sometimes I'm surprised at the degree to which really dedicated and well-intentioned parents dictate their child's play, ironically, in an effort to make them creative. When we took a Gymboree art class (bad exp for us), I was one of only two adults there that did NOT correct or even do my child's art for him. Like if the activity was to make a flower pot with pre-cut paper bits (ugh again), my Benji would end up pasting his everywhere on the paper and not even remotely near the pot. Oh well.

I was always shocked by the amount of parents who would tell their child where to paste or would even correct the placement after the child did it. I've seen people paint for their child or tell the child that he/she was painting too much in one area, etc. I've seen people tell their child what to draw or paint during "free time". It was shocking to me.

One time at a preschool-aged movement class, they were playing an animal song and the kids were supposed to act like animals. My son, always kind of doing his own thing, was pretending to be a cat. He enlisted his little friend to be a cat as well and they were laughing and having lots of fun. The friend's mother said, "But, Ben, the song is talking about elephants now. Can you be an elephant?" Ben just looked at her and then sat down. Why was it more important to be an elephant just like everyone else when being a cat was apparently more fun for them (and totally harmless)? But I'm sure she thought it was important to be an elephant just like all the other kids, because the song was to develop creativity and imagination. And I'm sure the adults who did their kids' art in Gymboree thought they were helping their child be artistic by showing them the "right" way to do it.

I think that kids are naturally creative. It doesn't need to be taught as much as it needs to be allowed.

yeah i think a huge part of it that i feel good about myself is not correcting ds all the time. i was at the park today and overheard a liitle kid and his dad

"hey theres a tent over there !" "no thats not a tent, its a tee-pee" " hey look a trampoline! ' " no , ds thats not a trampline ( soflt chuckling) thats just a bridge"

i mean its good to teach kids words and stuff, but i felt kind of suprised i guess about the way this kid was being corrected . his imagination was not being honored really. if ds says something is a trampoline when technically it isnt i will either agree , or i will say " wow yeah it looks just like a trampoline, and we can even jump on it like one! i think its a bridge!" and so on depending on the situation.

its really rewarding when he looks at a tree trunk and goes LOOK AN ELEPHANT! or something, cuz he sees an elephant shape in it, KWIM? even if i dont see it, i know there is an elephant there, somewhere.

also with art i am pretty hands off. i try to expose him to all kinds of craft and art materials, and i give him ideas like hey we can glue these to the paper, or something but if he comes up with his own plan ( like squirting the entire bottle of glue onto a peice of paper) i pretty much let him go with it. cuz i think its really important to let them explore and become confident with materials before we try to tell them "how" to use them, KWIM? i mean that is a basic concept in adult art classes too---you learn about how to use the tools before you raelly go nuts with them. ( and make a "real" painting , etc)

Hmm. I think that stuff like glueing little bits in specific places, and exploring other people's ideas (story time, structured activities, etc.) is important, both becaue they tend to nurture specific skills and becaue they give a 'library' of ideas to a kid that they can build on with their own creativity. You woldn't say "no reading other peoples books! Write your own stories!" Why would drawing be any different? Creativity doesn't happen in a vaccuum; giving your kid a blank slate only can be an intimidating jumping off point. Do a little research, and you will find that there are very few 'creative geniuses' that lived a solitary life in the mountains - they all had their own communities, often of other famous 'creative' types, and they all used each other's work to further their own. I don't know if creativity is inate or not, but I do believe it needs to be fostered and encouraged to grow.

Mostly, I think the best way to foster creativity is to let the child lead until they seems stuck, then ask questions or provide a couple choices of direction. I ask dd (2.5) about how she thinks the world works, why something happened, what is that fish thinking, how she thinks a story would turn out, etc. Or we make up stories together, with her filling in detail as I tell the tale. We play different instruments, go to different places, play in different environments etc. Sometimes I'll give her something I'm pretty sure she's not familiar with (like a scale, or a measuring tape) & we'll play 'what is it? '. Sometimes, I'll give her something she is familiar with (like a funnel), but we'll think of other stuff to do with it. Sometimes I spend all day being Mummy bear (her call), or being 'rescued' by my little firefighter or helping save baby jaguar (thx, dora @@).

I think that restricting activities because they aren't 'creative enough' is just as ineffective as insisting on certain activities because they are creative. Kids are always learning something if they are doing it because they are interested in it, whether it's reading a book, coloring in a book or on a blank page, or participating in a class. I do have issues with most battery operated toys and toys that insist on being used the way they are 'supposed to', and tend to buy classic stuff & comb garage sales for better stuff like the old fisher price little people. In reality, these kinds of toys aren't very interesting to dd, either. She'd much rather be playing dressup than watching chicken dance Elmo (yuck) or something

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But with art, most children under the age of 3 or 4 are not trying to create something specific. I guess I don't see the relevance of reading vs writing one's own book, because both of those are advanced and abstract activities; young kids' art definition is not the same as an adult's. Looking at articles on children's art development, most preschool children are not even at the pre-planning stage. In other words, when they scribble, they are simply scribbling for the joy of it. After they scribble, they look at it and declare, "This is an elephant!" and then they might change their mind later and say that it's a roller-coaster; they have not drawn anything specific or concrete. So they don't really need a library of ideas, because they are not developmentally capable of preplanning a piece of art yet.

In an older child or adult, i.e. people who are adept at preplanning art, instruction in copying helps them develop their artistic abilities. But I don't think it does that for a toddler or preschooler, because their brain is just typically not at that level yet. Sometimes it's fun to create a specific project and I'm sure it's not harmful in small quantities. But I don't see it as being linked to creativity. The other thread (coloring books) had some great links that talk about this: Susan Striker, Eisner, etc.

As for creative prodigies, they surely are not hermits. But their creative inspiration can be found in life around them. One of Van Gogh's famous paintings is a simple vase of sunflowers. Life provides inspiration and technique follows at older ages. In living life and sharing conversation with others, kids come up with ideas. Today, my son drew some pictures of "prickly" plants and also some skeletons. He did not have a blank slate or need help in developing his ideas. His inspiration was our back yard and the chiropractor's office. We don't live in a vacuum or learn in one. I believe that learning and creative inspiration are within us and around us, in an organic fashion. Being instructed to create a ladybug out of an egg carton and some pipe cleaners is fun, but like the coloring books, I don't see it as being related to the cultivation of creativity; it's just a fun canned project.

I'm having a homeschooling deja vu moment. To me, this is like discussing a structured hs method vs unschooling. I take the unschooling view of creativity; I don't think it has to be adult-initiated as much as it just has to be given freedom and time.

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Yes, maybe giving a kid a blank slate (ie blank paper and a black crayon) might be intimidating, but if you give it to a young toddler who has had a chance to expore it totally on their own without an outside influence showing them the "right" way to draw, I don't think that would be intimidating at all.

For DS, having him see what we drew has been a negative influence for him. He sees what an adult can do, and seems to think that he must do it. We are working hard on backtracking (no adults drawing for him) and trying to get him to feel free to scribble as much as he wants, without an outside influence. He still feels it is necessary to attribute his drawings to a real life object. I think this is mostly due to his sensitivity to adults drawing for him, but also part of his regular developent.

I think this really depends on the child. DS does not have a sensitivity about outside exposure concerning block play. Early on we played with blocks together above his developemental level (using them to build things- airport, garage, carwash). He has been able to transition back and forth from his own level of play to involvement with our play. He stacks, lines up blocks and makes abstract buildings and has just begun to make original representational buildings. So our play has not made a difference. I know of another child who would have frozen and refused to do block play once exposed to a more sophisticated level. (as DS had become with drawing)

I guess it depends on your child, and really being aware of how outside influences effect him or her.

edited to add: I really agree with what Leftfield has to say about this.
Susan Striker has become a big influence for me.

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I have to say I pretty much totally disagree with that. Art is what you decide is art, for starters - plenty of adults have ideas of art that don't match other adults idea of art, and most adults would agree that creating art is and advanced and abstract activity. It is not trivial to take a 3D image and represent it 2 dimensionally, nor is it to take a concept and represent it graphically. I have a hard time believing that the 2 and 3 yr olds are *so* proud of their artistic creations (adult led or not) if they are not trying to communicate something about the world they know (like what is beautiful to them, or whatever). Furthermore, my dd started tellng us what she was drawing months ago, around when she was 2, and drawing something that could be representative of what she said - Like she'd draw the cat (a rough circle-blob) then look and say 'he need leg' and draw a line off the blob (maybe off the top or the side or something, but still obviously different than the blob, and attached to it). Now at 2.5 she draws and labels all of her family and has drawn crude but recognisable (with some imagination) fish and plants. I guess it's possible that she's ahead in this area a bit, but unfathomable to me that most kids can't do that by 4. Not to mention there are plenty of 'real' artists that do as little preplanning as possible. Also, having a library of ideas is good for anyone - whether dd is creating art or not, knowing that she can cut with scissors, paint with her fingers or her brush, make a sticker picture or embellish a crayon or marker picture she drew, blend or erase or moisten her chalk for different effects etc. are all interesting to her and activities she decides to do at various points. I seriously doubt that she would have imaginatively come up with half those ideas on her own, but she has more freedom not less because she is able to choose form many more alternatives. I'm surprised that you think that is structured instead of 'unschooling' - to my understanding, unschooling is about introducing your kids to stuff and then letting them take it from there, not sitting around figuring they'll come up with stuff on their own.

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Well, of course it's not linked to creativity! My point is that following a coloring book or whatever is good for other skills (comprehension, fine motor control, etc.) and so isn't harmful. Plenty of adults enjoy the satisfaction of creating a project from a pattern, but you could hardly call it creative. That doesn't mean it doesn't count for anything - it's just craft instead of Art, kwim? Bottom line is if they enjoy doing it whether they are kids or adults, why should we try and stop them?

Anyway, creativity isn't grown only through art - problem solving, story telling, experimenting etc. etc. all require creative thought and should be used to explore creativity IMO.

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Anyone can be inspired by and paint sunflowers. The thing that makes Van Gogh's sunflowers Art is the way he was able to capture his experience of sunflowers - the movement of the wind, the vibrancy of the color, the mood of the whole scene and communicate it to people who view that painting. He is as much telling a story as someone writing a novel, or a musician creating a symphony, or a mathematician forming a complicated proof. That is creative expression, and he didn't learn it in his yard - he learned for other artists and mentors as well as his own experimentation and exposure to other's art. Friends such as Toulouse-Latrec, Emile Bernard and to a lesser degree Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Gauguin as well as other impressionists affected his painting, and I'm sure he affected theirs. Creativity *very* rarely happens on it's own. Thinking that giving a kid no or little input and allowing them observe their environment gives them a better chance to become creative is farfetched, at best.

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I don't think I'm disagreeing with your post really, but just wanted to add something to this: if one truly enjoys participating in "pretend" games, etc. with kids, I don't think it necessarily stifles the kids' creativity to be a participant. In my mind, participating is different than LEADING--that is, I'm not talking about telling the child what/how to act, but--as you say--taking a place in the imaginary/play world. In many respects, I think it can be useful--it is a good and useful skill for the child to develop his/her own ideas, but I also think it is a good and useful skill to react to others' responses and to develop ideas in response to external "cues" ("cues" is really the wrong word because it suggests leading somewhere specific...what I really mean is closer to "stimuli" but that sounds too clinical). In other words, I think adults participating in imaginary, creative play can be very beneficial (and fun!), so long as the adults are merely participating, and not dictating. For one thing, it shows that imagining, fantasizing, and creating aren't just "kid things."

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I completely disagree with this and do not believe it to be farfetched. I think creativity is inborn in various degrees and does exist on its own. I think that as we grow, we get imprints of various types from what surrounds us, which alters how we view things. I'm curious as to what kind of input are you referring to? What input would you give a child that helps them become creative?

I think that we have a fundamental difference of opinion on where creativity comes from. I think people are born with it, some more than others, and that it cannot be taught. I think creativity is a quality or a way of thinking. From your posts, it seems like you think creativity is taught; I hope I'm not misconstruing your POV. The types of influence you describe (e.g. art prodigies being influenced by each other) reminds me of technique or developed talent, not actual raw creativity. Someone like Van Gogh, IMO, was born as a creative person; that was his gift. His technique was developed over time, but he was not taught to be creative.

I think that we, as adults or older people, can copy ideas from others to our own benefit. Kids do this too. People in general can learn a lot from copying. But I don't think that's creativity. If they're creative, then they can copy someone else and adapt it to their own style. If they're not creative, they simply copy. The copying is not the same as creativity. I'm tired and I think I'm starting to ramble, so I should stop while I'm ahead.

I guess I just think that we're talking about different things (creativity vs copying technique) and that we're coming from two opposing viewpoints (creativity inborn vs taught).

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately because I just spent 2.5 weeks visiting a friend with a dd a couple of months younger than my dd. (The friend just turned four; dd is almost 4.5.) The two girls get along really well, but could not be more different in terms of their temperments and way of approaching things.

I've always tried to be very hands-off with my dd's art projects (as she calls them.) I just provide her with some stuff -- tape, paint, crayons, scissors, colored paper, whatever -- maybe offer a few tips on how to use an item if it's new and let her have at it. She's absolutely uninhibited and has a great time. However, she's also messy and tends to produce things that are, shall we say, abstract.

My friend's dd OTOH likes to have very clear instructions about how to do a particular project and a clear idea of exactly what the end result is supposed to be. She's meticulous and produces from very pretty things, although they aren't necessarily as, um, personal as dd's products. She also tends to get very, very upset if she makes a "mistake" or doesn't turn out exactly like it's "supposed" to. For example, the poor little thing was in tears because she make a mistake while doing a connect-the-dot picture (which are her favorite things at the moment.)

On the whole, I've been happy with my dd's approach and have always figured that she would start to draw more representational images on her own eventually. However, being around my friend's dd for so long made me wonder if I'm doing a disservice to my dd by not teaching her to follow directions more closely and by not putting more emphasis on the final results.

For example, my friend's dd can write her letters very clearly and knows the "right" way to do it in terms of how to hold the pencil and which way the various strokes are "supposed" to go. My dd OTOH doesn't write her letters clearly. She knows them and their sounds and can type well (my little computer geek :LOL ) but she doesn't hold the pencil correctly or effectively and makes the various strokes in the "wrong" order or direction, which effects the appearance of the letter.

Of course, I've managed to convince myself that I'm holding my dd back academically by not pushing her harder to do things the "right" way. I've been agonizing over whether I should start to "crack down" on her so that she can catch up with my friend's dd.

In my more rational moments, I KNOW that my dd is fine and that she will learn to write well and hold a pencil correctly and that she will do it all without being stifled. In my less rational moments, though, I feel like my hands-off philosophy is not really a way to nurture creative but is rather a justification for my laziness and that dd is falling behind her peers while I sit on my hands and watch.

Ugg. Sorry if I hijacked the thread. To get it a little bit back on topic, I'd like to recommend the book "Preschool Art: It's the process not the product." It's full of fun ideas for different sorts of ways to use common arts and crafts supplies, and there is absolutely no expectation that the end result of any artistic experiment will look a certain way. I love it.

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I think creativity is inborn, too, at least to a degree. It certainly comes more naturally to some than others. I think though, that you can teach people to think creatively, even if it is not their chosen style. I think creativity exists on it's own, but it rarely *happens* on it's own, ie. you need something to build on to come up with the ingenious ideas that we so respect in artists and innovators. An example - if you have 10 people brainstorming individually, and 10 people brainstorming as a group, the 10 working as a group will alwys have more and higher quality ideas even though they have the added complication of communicating & organizing with each other. I also think that little kids/toddlers art is not really different from 'adult' art, just more naive and done with less experience, incomplete developmental skills and a smaller 'library' of ideas.

I think there are 3 kinds of input that help people think creatively or be creative. One is mastery of technique, so that technique doesn't interfere with one's ability to express themselves. Dd is pretty little, so right now this just involves showing her different materials and tools, maybe giving her a few ideas of things you can do with them or helping her accomplish what she is trying to do and keeping her company while she figures it out. Keeping frustration to a minimum by voicing her problems and helping her find a solution is important too, but the focus right now is on process rather than end result. Later, if she finds she wants to do specific stuff teaching/coaching might be more structured, like with art providing specific information about the color wheel or perspective.

The second kind of input is about environment and observing it - this is pretty easy, it's just about going different places, seeing different things, and pointing out details of specific objects & asking questions, discussing them etc.

The 3rd kind of input is really about how to think creatively and exercising creativity. I voice my own creative process whenever possible (ie, Uh-oh, the store doesn't have the tomatoes I need for my recipe! Now what am I going to do? Lets see, maybe they have some other kinds that will work, or maybe in the canned section. Or maybe I could use a different veggie... etc.). I echo back her questions to her instead of just answering, or add some information & then ask a question. If I see she's getting frustrated by something, I get her to find the solution for herself as much as possible by adding in some things to think about (ie, she wants to talk to daddy, but can't get his attention. Me: What is daddy doing right now? dd: talking on phone. Me: Can he talk on the phone and talk to you at the same time? Dd: No. Me: ok, so what can we do? Dd: moves closer to daddy & yells - ok, so not a perfect solution LOL) If she is working on something & seems to be losing interest, I might ask some questionis about what she wants to do with it (Is it done? What does it need? Would you like some glue? etc.). More typical stuff like getting her to tell stories about the pictures she draws, etc. is important too.

So far as copying goes, it's not creative to copy what someone else is doing. It can be a tool in creative process, though, if it is used as a jumping off point. For instance, when I first started working glass, I wanted to make frogs. I found some frogs that others had made and copied them. Once I had mastered that to my satisfaction, they started evolving. It took 2 years for the design to stabilize, and now my frogs are very much unlike any one's I've seen before, but it took at least 10 steps to get to that point. Just about every artist I'm familiar with is the same - they get an idea, work it in sketch books and their mind, and eventually come up with something creative and unique. Sometimes they see something in another's art, sometimes they get an idea in a book or article, sometimes they copy directly but more often they apply the idea to something they're already working on. Usually, the public only sees the end result, not the process, so it seems a little magical.

Anyways, LF, I think probably the main thing we disagree on is what is art, anyways. I think art is the ability to express the way you see the world to others via some medium. Whether your medium is music, movement, science, paint or math is immaterial. Craft is anything that builds something - whether it is art or not doesn't matter. Technique is how well you carry out your craft, and may interfere with your art because your audience may have a hard time understanding you with poor technique. Creativity is the part of you that is able to use innovation to make your craft into art.

Dd loves to paint and draw with me. She'll get out a second easel and do her thing as I am working on my mine. One thing we like to do is pick the same object to paint or draw and then compare how differently they came out. That's a lot of fun for us. She and I knit together, and she has done a few paper sculpting things on her own. She dances all over the house, so I think that is another creative outlet for her. She loves cooking too.

My Ds enjoys fantasy role playing games online with his internet friends. His writings during those games can be downright amazing, IMO. He also enjoys cooking.