Ways to Encourage Children’s Resourcefulness and Creativity

Karen Stephens observed in “20 ways to encourage children’s resourcefulness and creativity” that resourcefulness, the ability to meet challenges in a variety of ways, is a by-product of creative intelligence.  As children develop resourcefulness, they learn to trust their instincts and unique abilities.  They acquire a positive attitude to problem solving.  Resourceful children mature into confident and industrious people.  Just as important, they tap into the multitude of joys life has to offer.

Some of the suggested tips to encourage creativity are:

1. Stimulate imaginative, independent thoughts by posing questions.  In projects, avoid telling children exactly what to do.
2. Resist perfectionism.  Don’t take over a child’s project because you can do it better.  Likewise, resist putting finishing touches on a child’s project to make it perfect.
3. Facilitate play; don’t dictate it.  Children get a boost from parents getting on the floor and really playing with them.  During play, follow the child’s lead.  Play should be a dance between the two of you not a concert with you as the sole conductor.
4. Make up cumulative family stories.  One person starts a storyline, and then the next has to add on to it, then the next.  The zanier the plot the better.
5. Change the end of well-known stories.  “What’s another way ‘The Three Little Pigs’ could end?”

(This article is available in its entirety on www.ChildcareExchange.com)