It’s a cliché, of course, but our children really are our future, in the most literal sense. It’s perfectly natural that parents excitedly wait to see what kind of tiny humans, precisely, they have brought into this world, and then seek to shape those humans into the adults they will eventually become. When your children begin to display the traits and skills that will determine the role they play in adult life, it’s natural enough to encourage them.
When those skills and traits are mechanical or mathematical or athletic, there are some obvious and well-established vectors to pursue. When your child is creative, though, it’s often much less clear. But the creative child needs as much encouragement, training, and opportunity to express themselves as any other child, in order for them to figure out what it is they want to do with all that energy. Here are some ways you can encourage them and help them figure out what they want to do with their lives.
Display Their Art
Most parents are happy to display the art that their children create, but there’s a lot of daylight between a perfunctory magnet on the fridge and really giving your creative child a sense of pride and status. Instead of just pinning their works someplace to gather dust, turn them into large-scale, gorgeous canvas art (or metal or glass art) to hang on the wall, gallery style. Nothing rewards creativity like attention, and this will spur your little artist to push themselves. You can teach some valuable lessons by judging each work and only hanging the best, showing them that simply creating isn’t enough – they must also innovate and surprise.
Let Them Design
So, you’re going to remodel the first floor of the house? Get your child involved. While a career in interior design may or may not be in their future, letting them help with the design and renovation of the home can teach them two important lessons: One, that creativity doesn’t only involve paint and pencils, and two, that creativity can have practical applications beyond simply making beautiful things. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to work with your kids in a creative endeavour!
Another dimension to this is allowing your child to design some of the patterns and even allow them to sketch out ideas for each room, teaching them the basics of graphic design, which is a profession that combines high earning potential and professional possibility with creativity.
Give Them Space
The most powerful thing you can do for any child that shows an interest in being a creative force in the world is their own space – no matter how small, a paint studio or craft room or just a bespoke space where they have the implements they need, both physical and digital, to express themselves any time they’re moved to do so.
In the end, seeing your child grow and develop creatively is just as powerful as watching them grow and develop physically. You can easily encourage them – and if you have a few choice pieces of art you want to display in order to do so, click here and we’d love to be part of your encouragement campaign.
