Are You Stifling Your Child's Creativity?
Apr 04 '00
I felt compelled to write this after reading a comment left by another member on one of my previous editorials which suggested, none too subtly, that I was allowing my daughter’s imagination to follow down an unhealthy path. The writer of the comment is certainly entitled to their opinion and I am secure enough in my parenting skills and in my daughter, to know that I am making the right decisions for her. However, it does bring up the greater issue of creativity in children and how we as parents, either encourage or discourage it...sometimes without even realizing it.
I have noticed a disturbing lack of creativity in many children today. Children who are unable to play alone for any length of time unless it is in front of a video game terminal or a computer screen. Parents who must guide their children through every step of imaginative play or children who do not know what to do when art materials are placed in front of them. Just a few months ago, I witnessed my own niece and nephew struggle
with making a collage, while my 4 year old approached it with vigor and creativity.
Are these children artistically challenged, or did my daughter just inherit extremely creative genes? Since her mother is artistic, perhaps a bit of gene lotto did come into play, but I am inclined to believe that it is due to the way in which I approach creativity with my daughter. She was given access to creative materials from an early age and I actively encourage her imagination...either through story telling or imaginative play with equally imaginary friends. She is never told that her imagination has “gone too far” or that her artwork and stories are “silly” or without merit.
I am reminded of a song by the late singer-songwriter, Harry Chapin. In the mid-1970’s, Chapin wrote and sang a brilliant song called, “Flowers are Red”. It is the story of a little boy who goes to school for the first time and during Art Class paints a pictures of flowers in every color imaginable. The teacher admonishes him by saying, “Flowers are green and red, young man. That’s the way it always has been done”. He eagerly responds, “I see so many colors in the rainbow. So many colors in the morning sun. So many colors in the rainbow...and I see every one”. The scenario repeats several times. Each time the teacher critiques his artwork by telling him how it should be done. Time passes and the boy moves away and goes to another school. His new teacher is friendly and creative. She encouraged the children to explore their creativity and to paint “using all the colors of the rainbow”. The little boy, however, has already been taught his lesson. He paints his flowers in neat rows of green and red because “that’s the way it always has been done”. He had been taught to conform and conformity is the death of creativity.
With rare exception, artists and writers are not born. They develop. History is filled with brilliant men and women who did not let the boundaries of society define them or their ideas. Would the world have known a Picasso if someone had told him that his figures did not look like real people, or would we have enjoyed the adventures of Alice and the White Rabbit, if Lewis Carroll had been told that his fanciful tales and characters were the sign of a deviant mind?
Young children who tell elaborate tales involving places they’ve never been or people they’ve never met, are simply future writers who have not yet learned how to write their stories with pen and paper. As my daughter matures and she learns to write, her imaginative tales will eventually find their way into written stories. While she may never be a published author and her artwork may never hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, her creativity will grow and flourish and will serve her well in any profession. A creative mind is a free mind. Free to grow, explore and discover.
Give your children the tools necessary to find their own creative place in the world. Encourage their stories and their imagination. Do not teach them to draw, but give them paints, brushes and paper and allow them to teach themselves. Give their creativity wings and it will eagerly take flight.
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Epinions.com ID:
Home_Birther
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Location: Midwest
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