How to Foster Creativity in Children {& GIVEAWAY}

“The Artist’s Way” is a pretty famous book for adults searching for a more creative way of life. It’s an international best seller and is one of the reasons the author, Julia Cameron, is so well known for being an expert in creativity. For years, she explains in the intro of her new book (“The Artist’s Way for Parents”), parents have asked her to write a book for them. She hesitated thinking we didn’t need one, but realized that yes, indeed, we do need inspiration in this busy world of parenting. Thus, her new version of her ever popular Artist’s Way book.

In “The Artist’s Way for Parents,” Cameron opens with three tools all parents should adopt if they want to foster creativity in their children and at home:

1. Write morning pages – this is from her previous book too. She suggests we write down our thoughts BEFORE OUR KIDS GET UP. I’m a big fan of journaling in the morning because it gets all of your negative thoughts out before the day has begun. It’s a way to start with a clean slate. I have to say, however, that I doubt I’ll be getting up before my children to write these pages. I don’t get enough sleep as it is.
2. Take creative expeditions – a weekly adventure with parents and kids that is planned in advance, together. It can be at a museum or on a walk.
3. Daily bedtime ritual – this is where the parents and children share what was the best part of the day. After I read this I started asking my children what the favorite part of their day was. Sometimes I get an, “I don’t know,” answer, but other nights I get some great responses that, otherwise, I would have never known meant so much to them.

One of the parts of the book that I relate to most is Cameron’s section about prioritizing ourselves as a person. She says,

“We must maintain our sense of self if we are to have anything to give to our children.”

So true. How often do we put ourselves at the bottom of the list. Even as a single, working mother, Cameron talks about how important it became for her to do things she enjoyed … or just to be sure to have time to write while her young daughter was at home with her.

Cameron lays out her book in a way that it can be read in pieces. Each chapter ends with small assignments to help you incorporate these new ideas into your life. One of my favorites is one that you can have your child do as well. It’s the “Blasting Through Boredom” exercise.

“As quickly as you can, fill in the following sentence five times. If your child is old enough to tell you that he is bored, he is old enough to do this exercise as well. It may be done verbally or on paper.”

I could ____________
I could ____________
I could ____________
I could ____________
I could __________

I consider this ammunition for the next time my child says, “I’m bored.” I’ll pick up this list that we did together and have him do one of these activities. Brilliant!

I believe that all adults are, or can be, creative. We tend to think of creative people as only artists or musicians, but in reality so many others are creative as well. So many corporate people I know (accountants, finance folks, big-time CEOs) have a creative spirit within them that they don’t get to use at work. As parents, we need to foster creativity in our children while they are young, so they’ll know that no matter what career they choose the creative element will be available to them to assist them to be successful.

This is a great book if you need a jump start to learning how to teach creativity or if you want to be more creative yourself. It’s longer than I anticipated, but can be read in chunks if that’s how you roll.

I’m giving away one copy to a lucky reader to help you get started.

Details to enter:

1. Enter a comment below saying one thing you do at home with your kids that’s fun and creative. Be sure your comment submission has an email address so I can contact you.
   For additional entries:
2. Go to Facebook.com/BalancingMotherhood and “Like” the page.Add an additional comment below.
3. Follow TheBalancingMom on Twitter. (www.twitter.com/thebalancingmom). After you follow me, enter an additional comment below.

Contest ends, Friday, September 13, 2013 at noon EST. I will take all the submissions and randomly choose one winner. U.S. addresses only. I will notify the winner via email and at that time request a mailing address to send the book.

Photo credit: Paul Stein.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of the book. Opinions are my own.