How to Encourage Creative Thinking in Children Using Visual Art Supplies

I have a firm belief that everyone is born with creative abilities. My experience is that many people who are not aware of their creative abilities do not understand what creativity is. Unfortunately many people were not encouraged to develop their creative abilities when they were children. This is one way to encourage creative thinking in your child.

Recognizing, developing and using our creative abilities is vital. Being able to stretch our thinking to include creative solutions to our problems, creates new brain cells, increases our choices and enhances our coping skills. The best time to learn creative thinking is during our childhood while our brains are growing. Any adult who is involved with children (parents, teachers, Scout leaders) can help children raise their creativity skills.

Coloring books and "cookie-cutter" art (the type of art in which every child makes the same item) discourage creativity. Although coloring books have a time and purpose, when a child is coloring in someone else's creation they are not learning how to create something themselves. There is also a purpose for "cookie cutter" art, however, when doing this the child is learning to follow directions from someone else. Genuine creativity is self directed.

The most important step is to understand the developmental stages of drawing. Unnecessary criticism from adults diminishes a child's ability to grow creatively. When adults respond negatively to children they will be less likely to repeat the activity. Children begin to enjoy drawing by the time they are old enough to hold a marker and will scribble with the marker. Markers are easier for toddlers to use than crayons and safer than pencils. Adult supervision is necessary to make sure the child draws on paper and does not put the marker in their mouth. A gentle reminder that markers are used on paper will generally suffice. If a child cannot comply with this, put the markers away and try again later. Toddlers enjoy learning to control the marker and are beginning to learn about creativity as they create marks on paper. Praising children for their work ("Look at what you can do!") and putting the work on display will encourage them to continue their efforts.

Gradually, around three to four years of age children realize that lines and shapes actually stand for something and they begin to try to make deliberate representations. It is important to encourage children to continue to explore what they can do with markers and never criticize or change their drawing. Around the age of four children begin to make pictures. Adults can encourage this by recognizing the growth the child has made and expressing their appreciation of it. During this time children will enter a stage called "Named Scribbling" in which they will look at something they have drawn, see a shape that looks like "a bird" or "a frog" and name the scribble as such. Again it is vital to appreciate this creative ability in the child in order to encourage creative growth.

From the age of 9 to about 12 years old children begin to try to make their drawings more realistic. It becomes important to them to try to make their drawings more proportional, to fill the drawing with details, make colors more realistic and learn how to overlap. At this stage children begin to feel frustrated and may ask adults for more help. Those children who have not received adult encouragement may stop drawing. If children do seem interested in being able to draw this is a good time for them to receive some drawing instruction. Drawing is a learned skill.

Clay is another important tool for encouraging creative growth. Adult supervision is vital in order to prevent ingestion and, again, gentle reminders that clay is for making things rather than eating, usually suffice. Allowing the child to make what ever they want to with the clay will allow them to follow and grow in their own creative process. The process with clay is similar to that of drawing and often children will make something, look at it and then decide what it is. Around the age of nine to 12 it is normal for boys to make phallic symbols and is important for adults to be able to accept this with little or no comment.

Paint is another medium that encourages creative expression. School age children will get a great deal of pleasure out of mixing the colors and learn a great deal as they do. Children enjoy watching the colors swirl together and gradually blend. When a child mixes all the colors together and finds that they now have army green or brown they have learned something about color mixing. If they are able to mix with some restraint, with the help of an adult, they will begin to learn color theory. Paint is much more difficult to control than markers or clay. Stiff brushes help children control the paint better.

Problems invariably come up when anyone is trying to create something. Problems are opportunities for creative thinking. It is always best to allow the child to try to solve the problem themselves and praise them when they do so, pointing out how creative they have been. When they ask for help an adult can encourage them by reminding them of other times when they have solved problem's. The adult can also ask the child questions to help the child think of solutions. What is most important is that the adult facilitate the child's creative thinking process, rather than simply solving the problem for the child. Adults can make some suggestions and ask the child for more ideas. Brainstorming for ideas and solutions with children invariably raises their ability to think creatively. Ask children for "silly" ideas. Albert Einstein once said "If at first the idea is not absurd then there is no hope for it".

Finally, enjoy doing these activities with your children! It is true that we all learn best when we are relaxed and we are more relaxed when we are enjoying an activity. It follows then that adults need to be able to enjoy doing these activities with their children. Watching children enjoy their creative abilities can be extremely pleasant for adults, as well as educational. Often, adults will find that they have learned a great deal about being creative by watching their children.

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When children behavior is getting worse, what's changed?

This article came to my mind because of reading two recent national news reports and another in a weekly educational magazine.

The newspaper reports highlighted cases of people who ride in the deaths of bats' behavior in their neighborhood in a horrific case of a mother killed herself and her child -. Driven to despair by the behavior of others in another case, a house was on fire. set a fire station and a mother died after ensuring her son's safety.One could argue that newspapers are sensationalism at the events. Even if this is true, the fact remains that innocent people have died.

The educational journal is to dispel a number of reports "media fueled myths" today regarding education. to "expose" The first report claims the myth of the deterioration in behavior at school in recent years. It is claimed that only 2% of schools have unsatisfactory levels of behavior.

It seems a Confiict be of the opinion on thisSubject. Thugs who are supposed to create a culture of fear and despair in death against the alleged behavior is to improve the schools. In the investigation of a research project I have a large amount of reading about it in pereptions to standards of conduct schools. Like now, the topic was fueled with conflicting arguments.

I read claims that teachers were leaving the profession, citing the behavior of children as a reason. Claims of the increase in attacks on teachers.Claims that schools are not reporting the correct numbers of attacks on teachers, because their reputation will be damaged! The claim that children of primary school age are persistently disobey school rules, being out of control and no respect for adults. All these claims were from prestigious conferences and newspaper reports. Not all the negative news from the gutter press sensationalism news as some claim!

But unlike a government department claimed that a smallNumber of students cause problems, but are rarely violent. Another government report claimed secured, there is a lack of evidence that there is more violence in schools than in the past. A later report from the same department that most children's behavior in school is good and getting better.

The contradictions in the perception seems to exist between between the people I always call those at the "sharp end" - in the firing line (teachers!).They are actually anything but sit in a comfortable office at my desk shuffling papers all day. On the other hand, government officials (the paper shufflers?), Improving an interest in promoting exercise behavior in the school have.

Thus, the behavior is improving? It's hard to say, but I suspect, will find a lot of people would the idea absurd! In my own area, there was an increase in the numbers of temporary and permanentExclusions, with much younger children, a growth problem area. And what do children generally be excluded for? Bad behavior - what else?

What's changed? Some people claim that children have changed ... Can this be true? Well, if their behavior is worse then probably you could say they have changed. I do not think that's the case - children just did not had enough time to evolve and change so much. What has changed, however, is adult entertainment to children. So many peopledo not know how to effectively manage discipline or behavior of children -. You do not even have to believe they have the responsibility or right to do it that does not tolerate unacceptable and do not know what to do to change things. You do not know what they are doing "allowed" ... Bad behavior is increasingly accepted as normal ... This is so harmful to children and very stressful for adults.

I hear from many adults who are afraid, they did not "allowed" to discipline orcorrect behavior of children. It is alleged that the teachers have a wide range of skills to student behavior inside and outside the classroom to manage.

But even if they manage these forces, what the use of them when the knowledge and skills to not teachers use to ensure their effective children's behavior?

An additional complication is the lack of appropriate consequences for bad behavior. Oh, this last sentence is full of politically correctJargon - education is full of it. I know that is the same in most areas of modern life - full of messages that are soft on the truth - full of euphemisms ... So, what to say the sentence? Bad behavior should be punished ... Now that is really controversial! Maybe then to actually improve behavior and families can live in peace and quiet, tortured by thugs with no - or if the behavior was not acceptable then something actually about them, instead of excuses to be done (punishment?)done and done nothing.

But you can change things, you can learn how to manage children's behavior - and it's really not difficult. There are basic rules for successful behavior management - those who know, practice and then applied them consistently. Do you think you do. We owe it to children.

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