Creative Zones in the Home

In my book published earlier this year called Raising Creative Kids, my co-author Dr. Susan Daniels and I discuss the importance of instilling creativity in our children in an age where art and out-of-the-box thinking has been largely stripped from essential curriculum in schools. It doesn’t matter if your child is a budding artist or an intellectual engineer type – all children benefit from creative skills in both the way they apply thought to their everyday lives and the way they learn to strategize solutions to problems. It is up to us parents to expose them to outlets in creativity just as much as it is to teach them how to eat nutritious food or effective study habits for their school tests.

One easy way to start fostering creativity is to establish a creativity zone in your home. This could be an actual room full of crafting and drafting supplies, costumes and games or it could be the installation of a cork board somewhere on a wall upon which all family members get to contribute inspiring quotes, found photographs and sketches.  It could be as simple as a portion of a room with a large desk and chair to work upon or it could be an external building like a garage wood shop or a tree house. It could also be a very large Tupperware box full of supplies that is tucked into a closet and brought out whenever the mood to make strikes. The idea is to come up with ideas as a family based on creative ideas each finds joy within and collaborate to create a space that is conducive to fostering all.

A creative zone doesn’t only need to be a physical space designated for creativity but can also denote a mental space that you go into with your children at for a designated amount of time that allows for certain attitudes and philosophies that may not be present at other times of the day. For example, perhaps you set aside a certain time of day in a certain room and whenever you are with your children here at this time, you turn off your parental instruction brain. In this zone, you can’t tell your children what to do but rather you let them lead you whether it is in their own version of a make believe world for playtime or in an art exercise where you are making something together. Putting this level of responsibility on their shoulders to create the play opens the possibilities in their minds and oftentimes results in wild, wacky and imaginative games that may never have had a chance to spring from their brain. Yes, it might be a space where there are art supplies and LEGOS for architecture endeavors and a laptop for story writing but it also becomes a place where a young mind has all the power to dream on its own without the limitations of the structured world it finds in normal day-to-day life.

Whether simple and minimalist or grand and ornate, a creative zone offers up a key to those vital doors in the imagination of a child giving them permission to explore, dream, leap and grow exponentially into a productive and fruitful world of their own making. In the end, that is the most important world of all.

Dan Peters, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and co-founder of the Summit Center, which provides educational and psychological assessments, consultations, and treatment for children, their parents, and families. Summit Center works with all kids, including those who are gifted, those with learning challenges, and those who are both gifted and have challenges.