Learning in the Early Days and beyond…

Photo credit: Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash

Creative learning is best started young. It’s never too late, but the earlier you start to instil a creative way of thinking, the better.

I know I have mentioned this numerous times over the past months, but I make no apologies for saying it again: Creativity is such an important part of learning and growing into an adult with the skills to face an ever-changing world – problem-solving, innovation, thinking outside the box.

So, especially if you have just found us here, let’s just look at a few more tips on how to “grow” a creative child.

Tip 1:

Allow your child to explore their world…

…and where it is safe enough to, that includes doing things that you would normally not allow. This can be different for different people. I’m not talking about letting them wander off down the road alone, before they are ready and ‘trained’, but I do know parents who would stop a child digging in the dirt with their hands at a friend’s party or wading into a muddy puddle in the woods that you have already assessed will be deeper than the top of their wellies!

If you are prepared for these situations (yep, just a quick change of clothes in the back of the car and some dry socks and shoes) then it will allow you to relax (and laugh about it) and your child to discover what happens when you are in a situation like this. Take the puddle. They will learn from it that one puddle can be different depths depending on where it is and also how to deal with a situation they find themselves in – do they cry, standstill and don’t move until someone rescues me or do they work out what to do next, wet feet or not. See what happens and try to encourage the second scenario – it might not work the first time but it will the more they are exposed to situations where they need to think creatively.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting you go out and find a puddle to test your child, but not being afraid as a parent to allow them to test boundaries in the natural world will give your child some freedom to explore and gain knowledge. It’s a bit like becoming what we call “streetwise”. As a child myself, I remember people calling children this when they were confident out in the real world. The streetwise child would be the one to walk to the shop alone at a slightly younger age than the norm, be safe crossing roads - understanding how to ‘read’ traffic - and, basically, not wrapped in a snuggler their whole life.