Being creative is a central part of life for children and their development. Children are able to manifest their creativity in a variety of ways, like drawing, building, and playing pretend. Parents can utilize the following strategies to help encourage their children to express their creativity.
- Provide your child with opportunities to do arts and crafts. Arts and crafts can be done at any age, and can range from something simple to something complex. Some fun art activities that your child can do include carving something out of clay, making friendship bracelets, making a spaceship out of a cardboard box, and sewing.
- Limit screen time. Screen time can take up a lot of time out of a child’s day. A study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that children spend a daily average of about 7.5 hours looking at screens. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends limiting screen time for children, suggesting no more than 1-3 hours of screen time for children aged 2 to 5 years old. Turning down the amount of screen time a child has can help encourage them to have fun and relax, and allows them to pursue and try out creative activities.
- Put time aside for imaginative play. Imaginative play includes any time of make-believe play, like playing with figurines or playing dress-up. Parents can also tap into their inner child and engage in pretend play with their children to encourage their creativity.
Some final tips to help foster your child’s creativity include allowing messes to happen, praising and displaying your children’s projects, and allowing your child to experiment. Encouraging your child’s creativity can help your child grow emotional and critical thinking skills, and also produces other benefits like stress reduction and identity exploration. Creativity can also help boost self-esteem within children and facilitate their fine motor skill development. Children are intrinsically creative due to their curious drive to explore about the world, and providing children resources to pursue their creativity can assist their development and promote their cognitive well-being.
Kylie Robinshaw
Research Assistant, UConn KIDS
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