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There are two kinds of moms — the kinds who hope their kids will become something — politicians, doctors or lawyers — and the kinds who hope their kids don’t become something — drug dealers, hustlers or the kind of people who talk to themselves on street corners.
I’m one of the latter moms, as you probably guessed.
Not that that’s the mom I planned to be; it’s just that when my first-born was young, I was always unsure of the way he played.
“Your son plays very … interestingly,” the preschool teacher told my then-husband and me as we sat nervously in our first preschool parent-teacher conference.
Interestingly? What the heck does that mean?
You don’t expect much more than a report of all the gold stars your child has gotten for coloring within the lines, not petting the school bunny too hard and replacing the picture books back on the shelf at the first preschool parent-teacher conference. You certainly don’t expect a PC assessment of your child’s ability to play properly, especially when you’ve had those doubts yourself. You mean someone else noticed???
“Do you mean interestingly good or interestingly bad?” I asked her, pressing the issue despite my better judgment.
I must have suppressed the unexpected unpleasantries of that first conference deep into my subconscious, because I honestly can’t remember what she told us. I know it wasn’t “bad,” like we should worry that we were raising a sociopath; it just was “different.”
And so it was.
Lego sets were never built according to the directions; PlaySkool castles were turned upside down, rendering the turrets and drawbridge useless; and Playmobil figure often existed hairless or cross-dressed. Later, he had no problem being the only kid not wearing a Halloween costume during the annual elementary school parade. And his frequent and sudden passions for something — a game, instrument, trading cards or sport that usually required hurried purchases that probably added up to a college education by now — that were just as suddenly dropped, frustrated his father and me even though we indulged him.
It didn’t seem “normal.” I wondered if it spoke to a bigger, deeper, issue going on developmentally. “No,” his pediatrician assured me, “everything’s right on track.”
So there was no excuse. Still, I was worried.
Then, one day, while watching him play with one of his toys the “wrong” way — or maybe when it was when he was dismantling his second bike — I got it; there really wasn’t a wrong when it came to play. “Normal” for him was uniquely creative way of viewing the world.
Now that’s he’s older, I see how that’s true. And, it’s made him a much more interesting and creative person than a lot of other kids his age, especially when you consider what passes for “normal” nowadays.
And it might actually help him as the workplace evolves into something very much unrelated to the work world we’ve known up until now, as Wall Street Journal “Work & Family” columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes in “Raising Kids Who Can Thrive Amid Chaos in Their Careers.”
Future workers will need “squishy” skills — adaptability, exploration, entrepreneurialism — along with the technical and professional ones, and parents should start fostering those skills in childhood.
And, without even knowing it, I supposed we did.
How do you foster creativity in your child?
Do you let your child chose his or her passions, or do you choose them?
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His Passion My son learns differently but he's talented in many areas and we've always encouraged him to follow his passion. From a very young age, it took things apart. Before he could walk he was taking the knobs off cupboard doors! Now he runs a variety of heavy equipment and his boss loves him because he can fix them too.
Encourage your child's creativity and let him or her choose their passions. |
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kids creativity I think as parents we are so forced into thinking our kids should do what 70% of the population does. My kids fit the norm pretty well so I didn't have this anxiety. But my BIL was one of those kids that took apart everything. My best friends hubby did the same and he's one of my best friends as well.
Guess what both of them are? ENGINEERS! They aren't ok with just having a toy or device, they need to know how it works. Not a single fault can be found with that! It's how we get better products :) |
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