How Safe is your Child’s Creativity

The Secret to Art and Creativity and the role that parents play

I have no memory of what made me decide to do it, but I do remember how much fun I had watching the colorful crayon wax melt all over the hot light bulb. Stopping at just one color , seemed like a waste of this new discovery, so I continued to melt more colors, and more crayons.

At some point, probably as the smell of melting/ burning, wax wafted through the house, my parents came to see what I was up to. As their presence snapped me back into reality, I realized that this may not have been one my best ideas. While it was a lot of fun, perhaps my parents would’t like me melting my crayons on lightbulbs.

They must have seen how much I loved it, because I didn’t get into trouble, I was simply told that I could only melt crayons on my desk light. That seemed fair, and happily continued my adventure in decorating with melted crayons.

As an adult my love for experimentation has remained, and I’m sure that sometimes my husband wishes that my creative ventures could be restrained to one desk lamp.

I’ve also learned that many adults, like you, love the idea of allowing children to be creative, curious, and allowing them to explore, but it’s not always easy to just let them go. You want to help them to paint the perfect picture, you find yourself wanting to tell them to stay inside the lines while they’re coloring, and you think my parents must be patient saints that they were able to allow me to melt crayons on anything.

You house is more organized than  mine, you probably get dressed by pulling clothes out of your closet instead of out of the “clean laundry hamper”. But you also believe that creativity is important and fun , and you’re trying your best to navigate raising a creative child.

You know that what schools are doing, isn’t working. In fact schools themselves are killing creativity. It’s one thing to know that there’s a problem and then another to know what to do about it. The good and the bad is that there isn’t one right answer.

But even better, is that you as the parent play a big role in your child’s life, and once you find a way to embrace creativity, your child will be able to as well.

“Human resources are like natural resources; they’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they’re not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”
― Ken Robinson

 

You and I both know that children have a natural capacity to be creative, to dream, and pretend, as adults it’s our job to nurture those traits and help your children hold onto them. That’s why I”m excited to announce all of the wonderful ways that we can work together to help your child’s creativity thrive.