Innovation is less about teaching creativity to children — and more about creating a fertile environment in which their creativity will take root, grow and flourish.

Children are naturally curious and inquisitive and in order to develop their creative capacities, to reach their full creative potential, they need support.

There are five components that encourages children to imagine what they want to do, create projects through playing with tools and materials, share ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences.

9 Ways to Boost Your Child’s Creativity

1. Encourage “possibility thinking.”

‘What if’s’ help children think of creative possibilities. It is a shift from more traditional approaches that encourage children to ask, “What can I do with this?” instead of “What is this and what does it do?”

2. Nurture your child’s interests.

When children feel invigorated their creativity blossoms. Allow them to choose their after-school activities. Encourage them to deeply explore creativity.

3. Expand language of imagination.

Being able to understand and describe emotions is critical in the creative process.

4. Play, play, play!

Through imaginative play, children explore their ideas and create meaning about the world around them.

5. Foster creativity through art.

Art is an opportunity for children to learn from chaos and disorder, an underlying and often invisible field of creative ideas.

6. Explore the beauty of nature.

When children and nature collide the results become magical! Critical thinking skills are developed as children learn to make inferences and draw conclusions. They learn by tasting, touching, seeing and feeling wildlife and flora in ways they cannot learn from books.

7. Advocate for the daydreamer!

Daydreaming has many advantages! It make connections and searches for unknown possibilities. Research shows that both daydreaming and solitude attribute to highly creative people.

8. Develop five habits of the mind.

  • Self-discipline
  • Openness to experience
  • Risk-taking
  • Tolerance of being open to interpretation
  • Group trust

9. Recognize creativity as joyful. 

Creativity develops a source of inner joy, allowing children learn to appreciate their natural, creative gifts as human beings.

Cherish the process – not the result 

“Professor Scry has published four books, blogs about the importance of literature and the impacts reading makes on a child.”