Raising Creative Kids

My daughter likes to make birthday cakes out of bubbles in the bathtub. She sings Happy Birthday and makes me blow out the 'candles.' 

Watching my daughter use her imagination amazes me. I didn't teach her how to do it, she just KNOWS.

Essential to development, creativity helps fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, problem solving, and cognitive thinking. 

For these reasons creative pursuits are encouraged early in life but then dismissed later when adults stop hanging up our finger-paintings and start telling us to 'get a real job.'

Are these not all skills you need in any CEO?

Careers today come with enormous pressure. In my parent’s generation a job was a means to an end, not an identity-entangled manifestation with which to define one’s whole life by. 

It goes without saying we want to spare our children pain, failure, criticism, and a living on canned tuna. Now that I’m a mother, I understand why my parents couldn’t see the romance in my becoming a starving artist. 

My interest in too many things, love of art and writing lends itself well to a career in blogging- but it wasn't even invented yet when I graduated Uni.

If there is one thing I learned from my experience it’s that I will be conscious of supporting my children in their passions even if I don’t necessarily ‘get it.’ 

My husband asked me if I think our daughter genuinely shares our interests or if she is simply imitating us. I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I would say it’s a combination of both. We can only introduce her to the things we love, let her be witness to our passions and encourage her in her own discoveries.