Maximising creative potential
by Dr Yew Kam Keong
Today parents are stressed out in trying to achieve academic excellence in their children. In this process children lose their natural creative potential. Creativity helps to grow and develop your child in wonderful ways and helps them acquire skills.
Creativity thrives in an environment that allows questions, exploring, observing, and self-expression. Help nurture the creativity in your child.
The following article by Dr. Yew Kam Keong, the founder and President & CEO of Mindbloom Sdn. Bhd. gives you some insights into how you can maximize your child's creative potential.
All of us are born creative. Creativity is our birthright. But as we grow older we learn to be less and less creative due to pressures to conform to social norms. Being creative is completely natural whereas being uncreative is something that we learn in the process of growing up.
Now more than ever before, Creativity, and not just getting good grades in school, is critical to success in life. Just take a look at prominent successful individuals like Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft), Jerry Yang (Founder of Yahoo!) and Sim Wong Hoo (Founder of Creative Technology). They have one thing in common. They are creative and can think very well. Yet most parents tend to focus on pressuring their children to achieve good grades rather than developing their creativity. Of course getting good grades is important but it should be considered as a by-product of creative thinking, rather than the primary objective.
Children, especially pre-schoolers are definitely much more creative than adults. This means that we should not try to teach them to be more creative. It is our job as parents and teachers to nurture their inborn creativity by providing them with the right learning environment for their creativity to blossom right into adulthood. There are also fun activities that we can do with them or encourage them to do by themselves that will help to bring out the inherent creativity in themselves.
The Power of Observation
The best way to develop visual-spatial intelligence is by enhancing your child's power of observation.
Take your child for a walk in a garden where Nature provides a boundless fascination for your child.
Discuss with your child a specific objective before setting out for each walk, such as looking out for different types of leaves, flowers or insects.
Bring some samples home where possible for examination under a magnifying glass. You can easily buy one from a toyshop. Encourage your child to ask questions.
If you cannot answer your child's questions, check them out in the internet, books or encyclopedia. A Nobel laureate said that his success is due to his mother asking him this question every time he returned from school : "What question did you ask in school today?"
If going to the garden is not feasible, bring along your child on your next shopping trip. Make it into an adventure trip by setting a specific objective in mind, like looking out for all objects that are green in colour.
What do you see in the logo? Do not argue or disagree with what your child sees. The most important thing is to ask him to explain what he saw.
Possible answers: Mountain and sun; sea-wave and sun, letter M with a red dot, a woman with long hair; a person leaning forward; roof of a circus tent (see white spaces beneath the logo); a ball being tossed into a bowl, etc. there are endless possibilities!
The Power of Connections
All learning is about connecting what you don't know with something that you already knew.
For example, how would you describe a mobile phone to someone who hasn't seen one before? When you explain it to him, you'll probably relate it to something that he already knows such as the fixed-line phone.
Likewise, all inventions and discoveries were made by harnessing the power of connections.
The mobile phone provides an excellent example of making connections. For example: clock, calculator, alarm, camera, fashion, lights, etc.
In the same way, playing with colours is a creative activity that demonstrates the power of connections. Buy your child a set of watercolour paints and some brushes . Encourage her to mix the primary colours Red, Green and Yellow to come out with the other colours.
Paste your boxes that you brought back from your shopping trip and cover them with blank white paper. Ask your child to decorate the boxes with her art.
Try out the following "Mindxercise"with your child. This "Mindxercise" helps your child to make connections when he sees a combination of two images.
What do you get when you:
Combine a wheel with a chair?
What do you get when you:
Combine petrol station with cars?
What do you get when you:
Combine school with a bag?