5 Ways to Encourage Creative Expression in Children

5 Ways to Encourage Creative Expression in Children – The world is moving aggressively fast. Technology has brought a whole another level of speed and convenience to our lives. The situation has arrived at such an extent that even toddlers are using their own devices and there is no way going around that. We are living in a generation where instant gratification has become the topmost priority. With a single click, you can avail almost anything ranging from food, entertainment, education, and much more. However, with the gain in technology, we have a bigger price to pay. Young children are not going out to play anymore. Video games and audio-visual sources of entertainment have replaced traditional methods of activity engagement for young minds. As a result, there has been an adverse effect on the physical and psychological health of everyone, especially young children. Cooped up inside houses, neither do children get the right natural exposure, nor do they indulge in creative activities anymore.

These young minds are the upcoming future. We have to build a generation capable enough to face adversities, climate change, and God-forbid, another pandemic. We can never control what the future might hold, but we can surely protect our children by providing them with the right kind of tools to deal with such problems in the future. Therefore, the responsibility lies upon us to provide them with the best atmosphere to grow well cognitively, physically, psychologically, as well as spiritually. The best way to move forward would be to provide them with a healthy and natural environment and deviate them from the toxicity of the virtual online world. The idea is not to eradicate devices of the internet completely from their lives, but to help them organise their energies in a way that would help them best in positively aligning their growth and development.

Creative expression becomes a very integral part of helping children achieve tremendous growth. The nineteenth-century German pedagogue Froebel upheld creative self-expression above anything else for the optimum development of young minds. Creativity not only boosts intellectual growth but also helps children in developing their own individuality which goes a long way in helping people forge their own paths in this confusing and competitive world of blind sheep. We obviously want our children to get the best of their faculties and achieve the highest peaks of their potential. In order to ensure that, we must take extreme care in encouraging creative expression among them. Here are 5 ways to encourage creative expression in children.

1. Self-Activity: Froebel upheld three principles to target optimum growth in young children. Among them, self-activity was of extreme importance. The idea is very simple and yet extremely powerful. The concept is simply to allow young children to decide their own activities. Toddlers must be allowed to indulge in whatever activity they choose without any authorial control. All the parent has to do is to provide a safe atmosphere so that the child does not hurt himself/herself. You must be wondering how that is going to help my child gain intelligence, right?

Well, the simplest activities are most of the time the most effective. Let your child wander freely in his/her room full of toys and decide where he/she spends her time. This can also be done outdoors in a park or the beach. Just keep a careful eye from a distance and let the child enjoy the simple pleasure of being free and independent.

Now that the child is free, he/she will start looking at the world through his/her own eyes which will boost the growth of their individuality. Children who develop individuality from a young age always portray the qualities of creativity, confidence, and self-esteem. Once your child has developed his/her own perspective, he/she can then move to look at others’ perspectives. It is now that the child will begin to understand the world in all its complexities. Therefore, the next time you would ask your child to perform better in class or any activity, he/she would not simply do it because someone told them to do so. But would make a conscious decision about using his/her energies for further self-development. This will also go a long way in helping children develop sustainable social skills which are extremely important in today’s world. Now you could be wondering where the creative aspect of self-activity is. Well, it’s pretty simple actually. Once your child develops a unique individuality and the quality of confidence, it is going to be must easier to garner an authentic sense of creative expression.

2. Froebel’s Gifts: Froebel wasn’t just a theorist. He was a creative genius who came up with the idea of developing a set of tools to help children engage creatively. These tools were set of wooden building blocks that children could use to create a miniature world of their own realities. More than a century later, we have building blocks made of wood, plastic, fiber, and so on. Go ahead and gift your child these tools while encouraging self-expression in them. Apart from creative expression, such tools also help young minds associate motor activities using hands and brain activities involving architectural and building skills.
3. Paint-Brush and Paper: This traditional activity is a gem to help children engage in creative self-expression. Provide your child with enough stationary and a piece of paper and let his/her imagination run wild. Imagination holds a great key in the development of young minds. Some artists would even say that imagination is the root of creativity. Therefore, provide your child with the opportunity to pain all that he/she thinks or dreams about. You might be surprised at what interesting information young minds hold. You can also use such moments for some bonding time with the child by sitting with him/her through the activity and dabbing with the paintbrush yourself as well.
4. Devices are not all that Bad: Yes! My objective was never to annihilate electronic devices from the lives of young children. The idea was just to make sure that their energies are not being dissipated by watching screens all day long. Devices can actually be very helpful in providing children with the platform to express themselves. Ranging from simple applications such as Microsoft Paint to even complex slide shows in PowerPoint could be great mediums to indulge in creativity. Even some selective video games have been proven to be wonderful in expanding the cognitive horizons of young minds. Just make sure that you set a timeline for the screen and have an appropriate amount of parental control and surveillance over the activities the child may be indulging in.
5. Story-Telling: The art of storytelling is quite unique and effective when it comes to encouraging children in creative self-expression. Not only does it help in boosting the wings of imagination, but also helps children in developing great social skills. The next time your child is telling you some nonsense story, make sure that you pay attention and help the child feel heard.

We, at The Summit School, take extreme care in helping children understand and showcase creative self-expression. The school upholds the idea of unstructured play which goes a long way in developing individuality and self-esteem among young children. Our teachers act as protectors when and make sure that they do not curb young minds’ creativity and imagination in any way. Enroll your child today to make sure that your child gets the perfect atmosphere for creative self-expression.

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