sorts of mechanical stuff to take apart; clothes for dress-up; and
old jewelry boxes to store and collect important stuff. Start
your child’s collection of anything fun — old postcards, salt
and pepper shakers, or padlocks.
• Make sure you have a white wall covered with plastic for dry
marker drawings.
• Every home would be better off with a built-in stage than a
built-in media center.
• In addition to reading stories to your children, make up
stories round-robin fashion.
• Make sure that, in Mary Poppins style, every job has an
element of fun.Encouraging Creativity in Childhood
Childhood is the time when the entrepreneurs and inventors of the future
really start to bloom. Parents encourage this by showing excitement
around their child’s areas of strength. These are the years of exposure to
the wonders of the world — exposure to museums, art shows, plays, and
dinner theaters. Whatever the child is exposed to, it is most effective if
the parents are excited about the experience too. Whatever activities the
parents experience with joy, in the company of their children, the
children take up with relish and, after a time, usually become absorbed in
it without parental input. My own mom interested my brother and me in
darkrooms, guppy breeding, butterfly collecting, and writing by being
excited about all of these activities for a short time and then turning the
darkroom, aquariums, butterfly nets, and typewriters over to us. Her
motto was “Try it — you’ll probably like it!” And her love coupled with
her excited curiosity about the world has lasted us for three quarters of a
century.
In summary, show excitement about how things work, do things with
your children, become excited about what they and you discover, and you
will probably raise self-motivated, curious, and creative children.