Creativity

To a child play is work and work is play. During the toddler years your child learns how the world works by interacting with it through play. Creating opportunities for free play is one of the most powerful ways to encourage creativity in toddlers. Free play is when toddlers are given materials (either natural, store brought or both) to play with in the way that they choose. While there is a time and place to demonstrate the use of certain materials like blocks or puzzles, toddlers need an opportunity to play using their own imaginations. I’ve known a little boy who turned a bunch of golf balls into a herd of sheep and played with it for hours, days on end. If you give your child the freedom to explore different uses for the same object you help her lateral thinking skills to develop.

Give your child an opportunity to experiment through messy play. You should allow your child  to play with mud, play dough, a bowl full of cooked macaroni, pottery clay or finger paint and allow her to make a mess and experiment with different materials. Playing in a messy way engages more of the senses and enhances creativity because different things can be constructed out of the same material.

Expose your child to different experiences and interesting people. Do you have a friend that has an occupation that is outside of the norm? Do you have an art museum close to where you live? Take your toddler to interesting places and allow him to meet interesting people. She will learn from an early age that some people live different lives from what she is used to. It will broaden her horizons and help her think creatively.

Remember that the process is more important than the end product. She learns a lot more through experimentation than by being restricted to producing the adult’s version of the perfect work of art.