This Innocent Little Comment on a Child's Drawing Can Kill Their Creativity
Psychology Productivity Health More Psychology This Innocent Little Comment on a Child's Drawing Can Kill Their Creativity Sally White Motivational, parenting and outdoor writer, this artist, world traveler and former olive-picking Greek island ex-pat has a wealth of life skills and knowledge to impart. Full Bio Your child comes home and
presents you with a drawing of your house. There’s a blue house, a yellow sun, and a green sky. You admire their handiwork and then gently ask why the sky is green. Shouldn’t it be blue? Most teachers and parents would have the same reaction, but before you speak, stop! That innocent little comment carries a powerful punch.
Unbeknownst to you, you are about to squelch your child’s natural developing creativity. Everyone has the ability to be creative, however, Professor of Biology and neurobiologist Erin Clabough Ph.D. writes that1 “creativity can be easily crushed by goals imposed by others.” Not everyone needs to see the world in the same light- and they shouldn’t.
Before you mention that sky should be blue, consider your reasons carefully. Your child can see that a sky is blue, but in their world it isn’t. Allow them the freedom to be creative. Creativity fosters critical thinking and problem solving skills. It helps people to deal with stress and adapt to changes. Most adults unwittingly squash creativity and
limit imagination with misguided good intentions. In fact, you may be surprised at some of these creativity busters. Criticizing– You may believe constructive criticism helps, but you are crushing their creativity. Pressure to Perfection– Making your child feel pressured to succeed, putting all of the emphasis on a perfect end product instead of
their creative process Helicopter parenting– Give your child space. Fluttering around them only builds up pressure to perform for you, not them. Restricting choices– Allowing them to only paint with a brush, not their fingers, the other end of the brush, a chopstick or other items kills creativity. Telling them to play outside but not get dirty
kills creativity. Play should be play. Being Bossy– Stop being a dictator. Creativity is best fostered in freedom of space and not from being told this is how you must do it. Should and must are two different words. The feedback given by adults can either boost or limit children’s imagination. Even though you may not be able to stop your child’s school
from funneling their art funds into a new math text books, there are ways you can work with your child to boost their creativity and stop limiting their imaginations. Rewire Your Brain Adults can become set in their ways of thinking. Like thinking video games are bad and today’s music will never match up to that of yesterday. Out-dated ideas. In order to foster your child’s creativity, it may require a rewiring of your own brain and
ways of thinking. Stop yourself from running on autopilot and praising the product, rather than the process. That sky may not be blue, but it took your child a long time and hard work to create it. Before you condemn that computer time, realize that digital art is as creative as drawing with pencils and ink. Realize Your World is Not Their World Stop trying to make your children see the world as you see it. Your judgements, your
viewpoints belong to you. You’ve had numerous years and experiences to base them upon and with which to measure them. Your child has a short span of experiences. Children have the ability to use their imaginations better than adults because they aren’t tainted by time and judged against the massive amount of data that adult-brains collect. Allow your child the freedom to use their own senses for themselves, unbiased by your suggestions. Provide your child with the tools, space and time to help foster their
creativity. Watch out for those creative busters, like helicopter parenting and dictatorial decrees. Try not to inadvertently crush their creativity, even if that means rewiring your own ways of thought. Work with your child’s creative process, not against it. You never know, you may be raising the next big innovator. Stop Criticizing their Work You may believe constructive criticism helps, when you believe their clay bunny should have
longer ears, but you are crushing their creativity. The rewards are in the process, whether they come out looking like a rabbit or resemble a melted lump with eyes. When they began, they may have envisioned their masterpiece in their mind, but it is the process that exercises creativity, not the outcome. They will learn more from their own
trial and errors- like those long bunny ears needing support, than if you just tell them. Don’t Interfere with Their Creative Process Don’t get in the way of their play. When they add a bucket of water to that pile of dirt and start squishing their hands through it, bite your tongue. When they set their paintbrush aside and dip their fingers straight into the paint and start coloring their paper with thumbprints, twist your hands behind your back and close your mouth. You are witnessing imagination at work. Remember, you can hose them down and wash those hands afterwards. References Featured photo credit:
Stocksnap via stocksnap.io [1] Erin Clabough Ph.D. Psychology Today: Travel with Your Kids for Creativity’s Sake About Lifehack Lifehack is about helping you improve your life through efficient and comprehensive learning. By leveraging the vast amount of knowledge available to us, we explore and present a wide variety of content catered to encouraging individual growth and solving problems. Learn more about our mission
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for free! Scroll down for the next article Why Pursuing Happiness Will Make You End up Being Unhappy Psychology Why Pursuing Happiness Will Make You End up Being Unhappy Leon Ho Leon Ho is the Founder and CEO of Lifehack, which he started in 2005 as a way to share his personal productivity hacks to make life easier. Full Bio
Happiness is like your favorite food. Let’s assume you love cookie dough ice cream and whenever you eat it you’re happy. But if you have a freezer stocked with it, someone gifting you with another one won’t necessarily make you happier. Contrarily, if your freezer stopped running and you had to go without it for weeks, you would be elated if someone showed up with a brand new carton for you. It’s a feeling we have all felt
(hopefully), but it’s certainly not a permanent state of mind. Here’s the thing, only by experiencing sadness do we understand what it is to be happy. Assuming others are always happy is the biggest misunderstanding of happiness. The funny thing is, most people see those who have seemingly perfect lives and assume they are happy all the
time. Blame it on all the fairy tales we were read at bedtime as children, but it seems somewhere along the line we forgot that there are not actually princesses who find a prince and live happily-ever-after while peasants and witches stew in their unhappiness nearby. In reality, there is always something missing, something lacking, or something unpleasant. No one has a perfect life. I think you hear it a lot growing up, that you
shouldn’t judge those around you because you don’t know what their life is like behind closed doors. But as we grow and mature we tend to forget. Happiness, at it’s very definition, is a state of contentment. Notice the word, ‘state.’ It’s not a “lifelong, permanent experience,” it’s a state. Temporary and/or fleeting. When we feel sad, we’re
only focusing on a small fluctuating curve. This is usually enforced by our well-meaning friends who say things like, “this is a blessing in disguise,” or “this will soon be a memory; this too shall pass.” They’re right, and we usually know they’re right, but in the moment it can be difficult to see past our negativity. Do you remember your very first
breakup? It felt like the world would never be okay again, didn’t it? But weeks, months and eventually years passed and so many other relationships came and went. Of course you moved on, but in that intense sad moment of time, you were unable to see that there was a future. What we don’t see is the extended version of this curve. In keeping
with the breakup example, the extended version of the curve would be your eventual life-partner or your realization that you were completely happy as a single person. But at the time, there was no future, only darkness and loneliness. What we fail to see is how important Sadness is to Joy. Remember earlier when I said we only know what
happiness is because we’ve experienced sadness? If you can really think about what that means, it’s pretty powerful. It takes the darkness to make us grateful for the light. Stop trying to be happy. Just be. It’s natural to want to be happy as often as possible. So what can we do? First, throw away the belief that a perfect life means happiness. Personally, I would be miserable if everything was perfect. It’s from experiencing the
pains of lifelong challenges that drives us to care for others when they are experiencing the same trials. If life was perfect, you wouldn’t be able to empathize. If life was perfect, you wouldn’t grow. To be truly happy, stop chasing permanent happiness. It sounds like a paradox. What I mean is, accept that there will be ups and downs throughout time. Gracefully understand that happiness is a fluctuation of positive and negative events.
Instead of focusing on the unpleasant moment right now, flash back your memory to when you had or didn’t have something. I like to think about my career for this example. When I didn’t have a career I was happy with and passionate about, I was upset. I felt like everyone was figuring out their lives but me. But when I found my purpose and
started Lifehack, I was so happy, even before I realized I would be successful! Remember that gratitude is the key because we only appreciate a moment when we can compare it with moments of disappointments. Happiness and sadness exist together What it all comes down to is this: your life will be filled with beautiful, happy, incredible, wow-
inducing moments. Happy tears and joyous shouts and funny stories. But your life will also be filled with rainy, mucky storms that don’t ever seem to pass when you’re going through them. But whether your face is warmed by the sunshine, or your heart is dampened by the rain, know that it’s all part of that beautiful ebb and flow of life. Relish in the happy moments and power through the sad ones. Know you aren’t alone in
experiencing either, and don’t be afraid to admit when you are hurting. Pretending to be happy won’t make you happy. But being unconditionally honest with yourself about how you feel and why … that’s how you learn to love your life — good times and bad, and that’s how to be happy. References Featured photo credit: InsideOut via facebook.com
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