Creativity flows from children when they are younger, so what a happens as they grow? Read on to find out and our top 5 ways to nurture children’s creativity.

A cardboard box nurtures children’s creativity.

The moment when after lots of planning, discussing what’s the most appropriate gift and searching for a bargain we notice that a child gets the most joy out of the box. But to them it’s not just a plain boring cardboard box, it has the potential to be anything, take them into an imaginative world of creative wonderfulness and change at any point into something new and exciting. Then as the grown up we often want to chuck the box away because it’s getting in the way, we say “it’s just a pile of rubbish, come on you’ve got lots of other things to play with.”

Here’s where we need to stop and pause. What we see as rubbish is your child’s creativity super tool!!

What happens to children’s creativity?

Did you know in a study carried out by George Land to investigate the nature v’s nurture debate, he studied 1600 children aged between 3 and 5, putting them through a creativity test, the same one designed to help NASA select it’s engineers and scientists. The focus of the test was to look at a problem and come up with a new, different, innovative idea to solve the problem. Only 2% of adults gain the ‘Genius level’ on this test…………….98% of 5 year olds reach the genius level. Over time this decreases to 30% in 10 year olds and then 12% on 15 year olds.

So what happens to the creativity of our amazing pre-school children? Why do we loose our creativity as we grow older? Because we are trying to add order and reason behind everything that we do.

If we want children to retain their ability and desire to be creative we need to ensure they have opportunity to let their minds run free when they come up with ideas. More box time!!!

When adults allow children the freedom to be creative it also helps nurture a child’s self-confidence and authenticity. By letting a child explore rather than focus on a result, children learn to invent things and trust intuition, they will understand processes, begin to problem solve, discover new techniques and by doing it for themselves the learning they gain from the experiences are far greater than just being taught and doing as they are told.

5 ways to nurture children’s creativity.

Here’s 5 easy ways to nurture your child’s creativity as they grow.

ALLOW MESS!

Don’t be afraid of letting them build a blanket fort in the living room. They aren’t just creating chaos in the living room, they are creating a whole new world, demonstrating the basics of engineering, making connections between the real world and their imagination, solving problems, building confidence when their plan works out. Take the time to join them in their world.

NURTURE CREATIVITY BY ENCOURAGING BOREDOM!

When do your best ideas and most clear thoughts come to you? In the shower, at night, when it’s quiet and you have space to think. Children need the same. Creativity is actually a form of boredom, children need time to do nothing to discover new things. Give them down time, away from things to be creative.

LET CHILDREN DISCOVER THE ANSWER!

When our children have a school project, as adults we get involved and can take over. If a child asks for help, do just that, help them through figuring it out, allow them to make mistakes to grow from, offer some assistance but don’t take over.

BE PRESENT!

Okay so I’m aware I have just said to leave them to figure things out but sometimes they need you to just give them a bit of time and help and be present with them instead of juggling lots of things. Sometimes they genuinely need our help to carry out tasks they can’t do yet. In order to nurture children’s creativity they also need to develop confidence to take the risks. Who better than the people they trust the most to give them the encouragement they need!

GO WITH THE FLOW!

If a child asks for your help to build a castle out of lego but after a couple of pieces fall off it turns into a spaceship in their mind – go with it! Creativity starts on one path and often changes into a new idea that can’t be ignored. Enjoy evolving with them, showing them how to go in a different direction, not always having to stick to the plan.

Enjoy, we can all benefit from some creative play!