Nurturing Creativity (How I Learned to Shut Up)
Years ago, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter was coloring Easter eggs. She had dipped an egg into the purple-dye cup and was about to blend it with yellow dye, when I stopped her. “You might not like the way those colors will look together,” I warned. Willful girl that she’s always been, she overruled me and proceeded to mix colors that I was certain would combine to look like a putrid shade of late sixties shag rug.
To my amazement, her finished egg was indescribably beautiful. The luminous green-brown hue was unlike any I’d ever seen – glorious – beyond classification by any Benjamin Moore chart. And (to think!) my pedestrian Easter egg vision could have easily discouraged its existence.
The question – which came first, the chicken or the egg? — will always be a puzzle. But I feel certain that if the ‘egg’ represents a child’s creative endeavors, a parent’s trust must precede the egg. Trust in a child’s instincts is the key to encouraging free access to her creative power.
Creativity is in all of us. It cannot be taught. It doesn’t come in a craft kit, a toddler dance class, or in a parent’s slew of brilliant ideas. Creative sparks happen, seemingly out of nowhere sometimes, and often when we least expect them. They flow freer when undirected, certainly when un-judged.
Creative ideas come to me after a few minutes of running when my mind can wander. Sometimes they come to me in the shower, or in the semi-dream state I bask in when I first wake up before self-judgment has the opportunity to barge in with rights, wrongs, and self-doubt.
When we are babies, the lines of connectivity to our creative power are clear. We encourage our children to keep those lines open by being patient, accepting, providing lots of open-ended time for free play and choice, and most importantly, refraining from directing, judging either positively or negatively (both are perceived as judgment by a child) or otherwise interfering with our well-intentioned help.
Early Childhood educator and popular lecturer Bev Bos urged adults, “Never draw for a child.” Her advice extends to include painting, sculpting, crafting, block tower and sand castle building, story creating, or anything artistic or creative. When we show a child how to do those things, we intend to encourage creativity, but we interfere with it instead, by demonstrating for our child the ‘right’ way. We create doubt for our child in her abilities, and encourage our child’s dependency on others to affirm for her what is ‘right’, or good. The artistic genius of a budding Picasso will persevere and overcome our influence, but we don’t want to discourage any child from experimentation and the therapeutic benefits of the wide variety of creative outlets at her disposal.
Creativity comes to us naturally, but it takes courage to follow our intuition and express it. Whenever I write and post something new, it feels like a leap from an airplane. Creative courage is shining a light in the darkness of boredom by dreaming up a new activity, or daring to fill blank space with our words or images. It is drawing a picture of a girl in bed “dreaming she is riding an elephant,” as a 3 year-old I know did, even if no one else understood it (but if you looked closely, it was all there).
Einstein once said, “I believe in intuition and inspiration…. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.” Children are born with that conviction, but they are easily swayed by our doubt in their judgment and abilities. We must be vigilantly aware of our children’s powerful instinct to please us if we want them to keep trusting that voice inside. Some of us have to learn to shut up (as I did) so our children can continue to listen.
For more about children and creativity, please read Blue Sky Thinking and Creative Spirits.
Photo by Frolic! (My egg girl)
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15 Responses to “Nurturing Creativity (How I Learned to Shut Up)”
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such a great reminder, I find myself micro managing my children and then frustrated that we are both at odds with each other. I find that now that I am raising my 3rd toddler, I am more relaxed to let them learn on their own and am striving to do the same for my older two. I once read that when you do things for your children you save time at that moment, but in the long run you will waste time and energy, with the same reasoning, to teach a child independence takes time and patience but the rewards will save you time and energy in the long run. Thanks for the reminder.
Yes, those are wise words. It does take more time and patience to stay out of our children’s way sometimes, but the autonomy, and especially, the ownership it gives our children of their creative projects makes it well worth the effort. Another challenge for us it to also let go of adult ideas like “product.” Children enjoy process and don’t expect their projects to amount to something as we do. We can learn much from them about staying in the moment, and out of the ‘results.’
Children should be encouraged and praised for all the effort they do in all fields. There should be no room for critisicm because this will only hinder them from doing more- for all you know, they are far better in their thoughts and ideas because most often than not, they have pure hearts and minds that are not yet tainted by the negativity of media. Let the children explore and bring out the best in them when it comes to expressing themselves- guidance and constructive critisicm is what they need!
This is really well written and persuaded. Thank you! I completely agree and even though it’s a mantra I followed as an early years teacher I already have slipped into this at times with my own little ones.
I learned very early as a early childhood educator to always ask “Tell me about your picture”. Because what may look like a bird to me, just might be a flower to the child that has created the art work. When they do tell you about what they see, write it down on the picture with their permission. Love Bev Bos and the work she does with her children.
I wonder why you would write on a childs picture, even with permission. Are the notes you take for the child or for you? Labeling and defining things is an adult concept that children dont necessarily need for things to be understood. If you need to remember what they drew, take notes for yourself, in your own notebook or journal.
I’m not yet a parent, but I feel that this will be one of my great challenges – avoiding micro-management. I think this is one of the many ways that my child will be teaching ME how to be better at being human – letting go, and having the openness to allow for magic, even if it doesn’t come in the package I expect it to.
Thanks for the great article!
This article had such an impact on me that I am in tears. I suffer from slight OCD and the action of the my 2 1/2 year old putting the brown paint into the yellow paint is enough to send me into a panic attack (amongst many other things). I have been reading your articles for some time now and have made major progress in the strive to stay out of the way so her creativity and independence can shine through. Today I will make a promise to myself to ‘let it go’ before I lessen her chances of becoming an albert einstein or picasso. I just hope it is not too late.
Thank you so much for this life changing lesson
Thank you, Madelyn! Don’t worry, it’s DEFINITELY not too late.
Janet, I STILL find it hard to stand back and shut up! Sometimes the words just slip out of my mouth before I can bite them back. But I try.
Jenny, all that matters is that you know to try!
I love the idea to encourage creativity by not judging. And lettin children’s natural creativity flow. I know so many people who believe they are not creative.
What bothers me as an illustrator the idea of never drawing for a child. Imagine the stories you can create together on a blank sheet of paper. I think the point of not judging or directing is excellent. But I do not agree with the idea to not draw for your child. It is like saying do not sing or dance with your child.
Great post though.
Roule, I totally understand your point of view, but I’ve noticed that our children’s budding creative abilities can be fragile… For an accomplished artist like yourself (unless you “dumb yourself down”), you are going to draw things far beyond your child’s ability and in the first years that can be overwhelming and intimidating. I know many, many parents who have found themselves stuck in a pattern of drawing for their children, because they once agreed to “draw a horse for me, Mommy” or just innocently drew “together”. Quite often, the child then refuses to draw because Mommy does it so much better. BUT, my children invented a wonderful game with their grandma that they all loved. They called it “copy” and they would take turns copying the drawing that the other one did and each end up with a picture that was somewhat the same, but also different. Obviously, these drawings had to be simple enough for both participants to accomplish.
I LOVE this post. I remember my first time years ago as an assistant teacher in a preschool classroom when a child handed me a piece of paper and asked me to draw a pig–I was firmly corrected by the head teacher when I innocently played along with the child (having no background in this approach at the time). It is so easy to slip up in the name of “playing together” and accidentally and unknowingly stifle a child’s creative flow. But it’s a fine line to walk, and I get Roule’s viewpoint, too. As an ex-dancer, it would sadden me no end to not be able to dance with my toddler son because I might move “better” than he can. Or to say that my husband, a self-taught drummer and guitarist, shouldn’t play music for our little boy because he can clearly keep a beat or finger a guitar “better” than a 22 month old can. I don’t think that’s what this post is saying, by the way…but I can see how someone might interpret it too strictly and stifle their own spontaneous, creative flow in front of their children for fear of setting the bar too high. It’s a very gray area between exposing our children to creative pursuits we ourselves love and ‘showing them how to do it’, and it’s a line I’m constantly trying to balance on without falling too far on either side of it.
And a question more specifically related to block building with toddlers…my son is at the stage where he is stacking everything. He has several sets of different kinds of blocks and can be very self-directed for a long time playing with them. But recently he’s been wanting me to build “with him”, which usually involves me just sitting near him and watching and occasionally adding a block he has handed to me to whatever his structure is. Today, he built his own piece as high as he could possibly take it, and then asked me to continue adding to the height. He would hand pick which block he wanted, give it to me, and ask me to “stack it again? way up?”. I feel like this way of building together still honors his creativity, as he’s clearly calling the shots of where the blocks should go and what the structure should be, while also giving us a “teachable moment” about teamwork and helping each other accomplish a common goal. But this post seems to suggest I should just keep my hands off. Thoughts?
You’re so thoughtful and sensitive! I think what you’re doing is perfect. As I was reading along about the blocks I was thinking, “just ask him where he wants you to place it”. You could even try to take it a step further and say, “show me exactly how you want it.” That might get him to do it himself and then you can be %100 sure of his intention, but this certainly isn’t an exact science…it’s an art in itself! I found these kinds of interactions both interesting and challenging.
Regarding your dancing and your husband’s guitar playing, I certainly wouldn’t worry. I agree that we must do what we love doing. That passion is wonderful modelling. The difference would be sending a toddler who enjoys moving to music at home to a dance class where he suddenly switches from creating to imitating. These are all creative judgment calls. All that really matters is that we are mindful and sensitive…and you definitely are.