Parents can have a huge effect on their children’s creative capacity by taking these simple steps:
Provide
an environment in the home that supports creativity and emphasizes the arts. Encourage activities that foster creative thinking, like painting, drawing, sculpting with play dough or clay, crafting and DIY, building, playing and listening to music, and dress up and dramatic play. For students enrolled in K12 Art courses, many of these art supplies are included with course materials. Consider making supplies accessible to kids and encourage artistic expression outside of school time.
Preserve
creativity by satisfying children’s natural curiosity. When children are at the age where they ask tons of questions, parents should do their best not to get annoyed, and instead try to provide or seek out the answers. Better still, teach children how to find the answers themselves.
Focus
more on original ideas, and less on “getting the right answer”. Kim explains that parents should encourage imagination and original ideas in children’s writing and drawings, rather than focusing on spelling errors or accurate depictions. Children can be taught to catch and fix mistakes, but creativity is much more difficult to teach.
Encourage
unconventional approaches to problems. Provide choices and allow students to use alternative methods of demonstrating their learning. By allowing a variety of activities and topics to study, parents and teachers can encourage creative thinking. The K12 curriculum allows for choice by including a range of optional lessons and activities for students and learning coaches to choose from.
Limit
passive activities, like television viewing. Interestingly, researchers disagree on the effects of video games. Some creativity experts believe both gaming and television are detrimental to creative thinking, however a study published earlier this year found a positive correlation between playing games and increased creativity in children. Further studies will no doubt focus on this link, but it’s still best to set reasonable limits on gaming and encourage other forms of creative and active play.
Play!
Kim says parents should engage students in flexible and playful thinking and allow for spontaneity and the occasional silly answer, rather than attempting to force maturity.
