Nurturing Creativity in Your Child
By Lori Enomoto
Most of us have an instinct to fit in. In fact, parents and teachers rely on children's desire to conform to societal norms for good behavior and orderliness. As adults, these people often have difficulty being creative because they've stifled that instinct or ability for so long.
Children who don't conform are in some ways outcast, whether by gentle teasing, harsh ridicule or lack of self-esteem. They may be painfully aware of their differences. Other children, particularly those whose families nurture and value creativity, continue to develop their creative potential. Cast by some as misfits, these children don't "fit in" precisely because they value artistic self-expression and feel comfortable "in their own skin" without trying to conform.
Looking with Fresh Eyes
Many children are more creative than adults. They look at things with fresh eyes and a perspective untainted by everyone else's opinion. They use language in an interesting way, coming up with constru cts, ideas and interpretations because they approach a subject through their own experience and with limitless imagination.
As adults, we tend to operate from a place of context and security. We develop expertise in what we know; it's our comfort zone. Those who are more creative operate outside of the comfort zone, or the traditional way to interpret the world around us. That's why creative people don't always "fit in" - they operate outside norms and expectations.
So how do we recognize and develop creativity in our youth, especially if they're more creative than we are? To start, it's helpful to better understand creativity by breaking it down into distinct abilities, so it's not such a mystery. Creativity requires a balance of synthetic or associative ability, analytical ability and practical ability.
Associative Ability
Creativity requires that a person come up with unique ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. This person may have good associative powers of thinking that allow her to create connections between otherwise disparate things. She synthesizes information in a different way. The end result could take any number of forms: a scientific hypothesis, a piece of art, a musical composition or an unusual application of a theory, helping to advance how we understand the world.
This synthesis of thought may have detractors. Think of Copernicus' theory that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. Galileo was convicted of heresy for believing in this radical theory and espousing that the Earth was indeed round and turned on an axis.
Indeed, defensiveness against others' viewpoints, or a lack of openness, crushes creativity. So it's important to teach teens to respect and learn from others, and imagine someone else's point of view. This is the seed of creative collaboration; it broadens us as individuals and creates an environment that fosters tolerance and appreciation of differences.
Analytical Ability
Surprisingly, creative people also tend to have an ability to analyze. They can separate out different elements and discern which has the most potential for development. They can apply an analytical framework to their work; for example, a writer may think about what he has written and break it down into three acts, identifying critical points such as the climax, in the storyline. Analysis is a tool for deciding what's next and which idea has the most potential.
Practical Ability
Successful creative people also have practical ability. If they are ever to share their work with others or find an audience, they need to understand how to bring it to people. Someone may have the inkling of a great idea, but there's a certain amount of creative ability required to understand how to take an idea in their head and bring it to the canvas or the store shelf, or turn it into a song that others are likely to hear.
Valuing Creativity
To nurture these different abilities that fuel creativity, it helps to foster a creative environment at home, where children feel comfortable exploring and expressing their creativity. As a parent, it's good to be a role model by engaging in creative endeavors. When you find genuine pleasure in exploration, you convey that to your children. By discussing art, music and literature in the home, these become values.
- Create Space. Creativity blossoms when given space and tools. That may be physical space and tools for exploration (from instruments to sketchbooks to computers), or it may be mental space, encouraging your child to explore ideas, experiment with different media and feel secure in the idea of being different. Natural light, physical space and a positive, pleasant atmosphere help stimulate creativity, as can a change in surroundings. When we're trying to brainstorm creative approaches, we need to suspend the critical or judgmental mind and find joy in investigations, original approaches or innovation.
- Allow Time. Creativity also needs time to develop. If there's one right answer and children have to make a beeline to find it in time, they aren't going to spend the time in creative exploration. By returning to an unfinished project, a child can layer in their perspective the next day and take their project in a new direction or further develop the direction they're going. Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling suggested that the scientific creative process is about coming up with ideas and then discarding the useless ones. Creativity often involves some sort of insight that leads a person to pursue a path, even though it may be ambiguous and take time to explore.
- Offer Choices. Creativity is as much about the creative process as it is about the end result. By giving kids choices about how they want to accomplish tasks and which tasks they want to accomplish, they start to develop a creative style of their own, which is empowering. Overly competitive environments, where there is one right answer and only one way to get there can discourage creativity by discouraging experimentation. Creative environments allow children to challenge assumptions. Children feel safe in expressing who they are and how they feel. There's an opportunity for adventure when children express what's going on in their inner world in relation to their outer world.
Measuring Creativity
Creativity can be found in almost any field. It's generally characterized by innovation and invention and is often associated with the arts. People link it with "right-brain" thinking, lateral thinking or multi-dimensional thinking.
Unlike IQ (Intelligence Quotient), there isn't a standard test for creativity. This is partially due to the fact that the tester's interpretation of what's creative comes into play, making it difficult to come up with a standardized measure. There are a number of tests that measure originality of ideas, level of detail and the number of ideas proposed during a test. However, there isn't one recognized standard for the measurement of creativity.
In Japan, tests designed to measure creativity assess problem-solving ability and the ability to recognize problems. Other tests measure social and personality traits, such as independence, openness, aesthetic orientation and interest in complexity.
A difficulty in measuring creativity is that people define it in different ways. Broadly speaking, it involves the discovery of new ideas or the association between existing ideas in a new and different way. Some insight is generally involved, fueling invention and innovation. Since so many fields offer an opportunity for creativity, it becomes difficult to narrow the definition even further. For example, creativity can involve precision or a high level of abstract thinking and artistic talent.
Following the Creative Impulse
Whatever it is, our society values creativity as that which allows us to make great leaps forward as a civilization. It's a value to foster in our homes and in the classroom. And it's fun for people of all ages to explore their inner world, while at the same time following their creative impulses in the world of the arts, science, technology and mathematics.