Home Is Where the Art Is: How to Inspire Your Kids to Be Creative

Freedom. Allow your child the freedom to create their OWN art without giving them your expectations (or assistance). A child who creates freely learns to enjoy and benefit from art, and becomes more self-confident in their abilities to do all sorts of things (not just art). A brown blob might not be what YOU expected, but the child who created that blob is a proud and confident child indeed.

Process. Focus on the child and the process of what they’re creating. You can ask your child questions about the process, but never about the result. To a child, it doesn’t matter. Just playing with the paint might be their only goal.

Show it off. Display as much of your child’s artwork as possible. Never allow your child to see you throwing away their artwork. If you can, mat or mount the work (even if it’s a brown blob). Hanging her creation on the fridge, on a bulletin board or in your office is all it takes to build your child’s creativity confidence. If you’d like to make gifts of your child’s art, visit www.cafepress.com (it’s easy to upload artwork and have it imprinted on just about anything).

Other ways to foster creativity:

• Take special trips and record your experiences with photos, art, or words.
• Explore the outdoors with no particular purpose or destination.
• Talk to people with your children and learn about the past, present, and future.
• Start a story with your children, and let them finish it.
• Make books from magazine clippings and let your child dictate the text (if they’re too young to write).
• Make edible art from your food or desserts (pudding painting with food coloring is a blast).
• Dress up in old clothes and create your own play.
• Design your own game.
• The concoction game (let children make their own concoction with their choice of ingredients and have them name it).
• Come up with your own language.
• Pretend to be animals, snowflakes, fairies, giants, snails, mice, etc.
• Play charades.
• Ask open-ended questions about things children see.
• Play “can you guess what’s in your hand” (with eyes closed).
• Play the change game (what would taste better if it were sweeter, what would be better if it were smaller, etc.).
• Questions and answers (ask children questions with lots of answers, such as what can you do with water?).
• Play the what if game (what would happen if you could fly, what if you were a turkey, etc.)

One final thought: On average, children laugh 435 times a day. Adults laugh 100 times a day. How is it that we adults ended up 335 laughs short of a good time? Laugh, play, and create with your children often, and make the world a better place.

Lynn Toomey is a member of the Boston Incubator and the founder and chief creativity officer of Let’s Gogh Art.

Ladies Who Launch is asking you … do you have any advice for fostering creativity? Let everyone know in the Comments section below!

Grown-ups who were once creative kids can join the Crafters Online group. Check it out!

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