16 June, 2022
4 min read
The summer period provides an excellent opportunity for parents to bond with their children and teach them skills that may not be taught in the classroom. This article will dissect how parents can help nurture the creativity in their
Children are highly blessed with many potentials compared to adults who, literally, have grown to be all they can be. As remarked by a proverb, “We can count the number of fruits on a tree but we cannot count the number of trees in a fruit”. Children are that fruit with many possibilities locked inside of them; and one of such is the gift of creativity: children are very creative.
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Creativity enables children to explore alternative ways of thinking, unblock old habits of thinking, and free their minds in a way that makes learning effective. Creativity connects children with their inner selves, helps draw out latent gifting, and connects them with their passion. More importantly, creativity nurtures the confidence in children, helps them to rise up to challenges, and encourages them to question things until they gain clarity. Sadly, as they grow older, they lose this creativity as evidenced in a psychological research work by George Land.
In 1968, George Land, Ph.D. (1932-2016), conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children enrolled in a Head Start program, and whose ages ranged from three-to-five years old. This was the same creativity test devised to help the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration select innovative engineers and scientists. The assessment worked so well he decided to try it on children. He re-tested the same children at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age.
The results were astounding.
“What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behaviour is learned.” And the opposite also holds: creative behaviour can be learned. Given this backdrop, it is important to learn how to make children remain creative as they grow older. To do this, we offer 3 suggestions.
1. Let your children hang around creative people: We must have heard about the ageless, priceless, and sacrosanct saying that iron sharpens iron. Creative people stretch the minds of other creative people and afford them the opportunities to be challenged and to always step up. Interacting with creative people could be physical or virtual: for instance, allowing your children to immerse in timed learning experiences online or spending quality time with people with demonstrated creativity would do wonders.
2. Give them permission to be wrong: Good ideas often always come from numerous bad ones; good decisions invariably come from series of bad ones; and doing things effortlessly often come from countless numbers of failed trials. Help your children to overcome the fear of making fools of themselves: fear prevents us from living up to our full potential.
3. Ask them the How and What questions: These questions make them think and reflect. Their answers do not have to be right: it is the process that is more important. You could share a challenge you are going through and ask how they would solve it.
Action Point
Considering the importance of putting your children in the midst of other creative people, the Bournvita Tech Bootcamp is a platform for children to put their creativity to action. You can make your children participate in this year’s edition here. We give children the liberty to birth their own technological dreams.
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