"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." -- Mary Lou Cook
Study found kids who are exposed to creativity encouragement will see future success.
In a study conducted by an educational psychologist in Virginia, USA, they found that the creativity scores have significantly decreased among the primary school children in the past decade. As the experts believed creativity children not only helps kids develop social interaction skills but also helps them to grow up with more confidence.
How to gain back the creativity in your children? Here are 5 simple ways that you can consider:
- Allowed Free Time
It is essential to provide some unstructured time for your child, especially after they started attending their primary school. Many Aisa parents will like to occupy their kids with lots of structured paid tuitions and extra classes which may make them exhausted and emotionally feeling anxious.
A session of free time can give back your children time to think and to relax too. It creates a get away session from their overwhelming schedule. Free time helps children build their creative thinking, in fact, it is the same when we apply to the adults.
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Free Play.
Do we parents remember how we played when we were young? If you were grown up in the 80’s or 90’s, you definitely have more free playing time compared to the children that were born in this screen gadgets millenium. Free plays like hide and seek, role pretending, or even just chasing in a park will provide a healthier emotional state in your child’s mind. Imagination and creativity will always come along during their free play time with their peers or parents.
Reducing children's screen time, replaces with more free play time is a wise move. However, it required additional effort from the parents to make the free play time more interesting from the distration sticking to the gadget’s screen.
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Avoid Micromanaging
What is your response when you see a child scribbling on the walls? Some parents or teachers even prohibit the kid from using markers and crayons when they catch them scribbling on the wall. These approaches could have negative effects on the kid's kinesthetic (muscle coordination) development and it also ruin their creative expressiveness.
Instead, we should educate the kids the proper channel to scribe or sketch, example by giving them a new drawing book or board as a gift. By this approach, creativity thinking development will be grown and it makes the child live more happy.
Always remember that children tend to be more creative mindset when they are giving their space for their free acts and plays.
- Toys and Tools
Experts believed open-ended toys or toys that can be played without an end goal in mind will encourage creative problem solving and building positive imagination.
Few of the right toys for this purpose are including clay and dough, mini-figures, dress-up material, puzzles and building blocks.
An example with these toys playing is when a kid is experimenting with their steps to build new building’s tower cranes or creating an imaginary gigantic dinosaur with blocks. This process of experimenting is critical in helping kids to develop their creativity and unleashed imagination. It also encourage problem solving without doubt.
We like Mijoy’'s 90-piece, multi-shaped bio-plastic block set. It is made with sustainable material and with child-safe blocks design.
- Show Time
Providing a fun storytelling time or mini show time when your children have created something by their imagination is fun and encourages bonding. For example, when they completed their first watercolour drawing or when a blocks bulldozer model was built. It will not only provide them with the opportunity to improve their communication skill but also offer them time to be creative in presentation and confident in communication.
Keep the show time simple; some rewards for their effort would be helpful in keeping the fun factor up.
We hope with these tips, you will not only develop a bright smart kid but also improve your parent and child bonding moment. Happy parenting!
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