Routines and Habits to Boost Your Child’s Creativity

Creativity makes life fulfilling. Creative people are happier, more confident, and solve problems better than non-creative people. In child development, creativity plays an important role by helping children cope with and express their feelings as well as growing critical thinking skills and fostering cognitive and social development. 

As parents, we can help our children develop routines and habits that will boost their creativity. Below are 4 such routines to incorporate into your child’s daily life that will make him more imaginative, expressive, creative, and fulfilled. 

Moving meditation. 

Most kids can’t sit still long enough to meditate. Here’s the good news: They don’t have to! Teach your child how to make moving meditation a part of their daily routines, preferably first thing in the morning. Research1 shows that open monitoring meditation is best for improving creative thinking. To teach open monitoring meditation to your child, simply instruct them to bring awareness to their senses. Talk about the sensation of the carpet beneath their feet or the smell of breakfast cooking. Ask them to pay attention to the way the toothbrush feels and the tart taste of their orange juice. Bringing awareness to thoughts and feelings is also a type of open monitoring meditation. This is simply observing one’s thoughts without judgement and noticing the feelings that arise. This is a good practice for older children to add into their daily routines and has been shown to boost cognitive thinking and creative skills.

Read

Neuroscientists at Emory University2 found that reading fiction enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. In fact, they detected changes in brain days after reading a novel, so the benefits linger well past when your child closes the book! Regular reading improves brain function and boosts imagination because as we read, we literally create a new world in our minds. When your child uses their imagination like this, it engages their right brain - their creative mind. The key is that they need to be engrossed in the book, so help your child find a genre or author they love. Reading aloud to your child has many benefits as well, such as stronger emotional connection, improved listening skills, improved vocabulary and comprehension, as well as boosting information processing skills. Therefore, make sure reading together is part of your daily routine!

Shared Storytelling

When my children were young, I’d lie between them in bed and we’d make up fantastic adventures together. Even now, these are some of our best and happiest memories, and little did I know how much this simple nightly routine was growing their imaginations and their creativity! Now as a teen and a pre-teen, both are proficient storytellers as well being creative musicians and artists, and I think their creative sparks can be traced back to those late night stories we made up together. 

To begin this creative routine with your child, snuggle up together and think of a theme or topic. Then, decide who will begin the story. That person will tell the beginning of the story, and leave off for the next person to pick up. Then, you, or the next person in line, will take the story in their own creative direction for several minutes before leaving off for the next to pick up, and so on! This is a wonderful brain exercise to really get those creative juices flowing! 

Engage in Creative Play

Your child has playtime everyday anyway, right? Chances are, your child is already engaging in creative play naturally, which is defined as “children’s play that tends to satisfy the need for self-expression as well as to develop manual skills.” Painting, sculpting, crafting, role-play, music play, drawing, and dancing are all forms of creative play. To ensure that your child engages in a regular routine of creative play, consider the following:

1. Create a special art corner or space in your home for creative play. This space could include an easel with paper and paints, a desk with a drawing pad and pencils, playdough, construction paper, etc. 
2. Set aside a specific time each day for creative play. To create a habit, one has to be consistent for several weeks. It’s easier for your child to be consistent if you schedule into his daily routine. Perhaps creative play happens right after nap time or every evening at 5 pm or directly after breakfast. The goal is to make it a natural part of daily life.
3. Expose them to new outlets. If your child resists painting or drawing, don’t give up! Introduce him to dance. If that doesn’t strike his fancy, try modeling kits. Experiment with several different types of creative activities so your child can find her spark.

Sources:

1. “Meditation Makes You More Creative, Study Suggests.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 28 Oct. 2014, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141028082355.htm. 
2. Heavenridge, Paul. Why Read? Reason #6: Knowledge Is Power but Imagination Is More Valuable. 20 May 2015, www.literacyworks.org/news/2015/5/20/why-read-reason-6-knowledge-is-power-but-imagination-is-more-valuable#:~:text=Reading%20broadens%20our%20imagination%20by,the%20world%20through%20others'%20lives.