Raising the Dangerous Generation: Fearless Creative Warriors

Staying on track regarding last week's call to action to tap into the rich resource of creativity to harness our creative power and wield it for good for ourselves and our communities, I wanted to launch into the week from the perspective of a new mom raising the next generation of humans. I am raising a fearless creative warrior. I already see that innate curiosity thriving in my son, a necessary pillar for building a creative life that is abundant and powerful. This doesn’t mean I want to raise him in the arts to the exclusion of everything else, or that he must follow traditional patterns of arts and creativity. 

What I mean when I say I want to raise my son to embrace and partake in creativity is that I want him to thrive in a life that is built for him, by him; one that is full and versatile and healthy. I think this is especially necessary for little boys. I am part of a generation of men that often feel overlooked, purposeless, suffocated. They were told creativity was only about the arts. Creativity was not fostered, developed, or really encouraged at all, yet it is essential for self knowledge, self expression, self exploration, and self regulation. It is a tool they were not given by the systems of society. I want the next generation to be raised differently, especially our boys.

Every child has immense capacity for creativity; their imaginations are boundless, their egos so small they can’t get in the way of their true selves. They haven’t learned how to shrink themselves to make others comfortable. They haven’t learned that limitations exist. This isn’t a crusade to push creative careers or entrepreneurship onto others. This is a call to encourage creativity as a tool for self development from an early age, to eradicate the shame surrounding asking questions, playing pretend, daring to demand more from the world and from ourselves, to encourage creation with our own hands, and allow the questing of the mind without censorship.

There is power in creativity. Whether it be an art installation with a political statement, or a decision being made in a boardroom, creativity is a skill that makes you dangerous because you dare to think differently, shift your perspective, boldly share your thoughts and ideas for the betterment of those around you. I want my son to know that creativity is powerful, purposeful, productive. I want him to have an outlet for his emotions, a place to play as he grows and outgrows childhood and adolescence.

How do we help creativity to grow in our children?

It is important here to remember that creativity is not exclusive to the arts! Creativity extends far beyond the walls of classic or traditional art, especially in today’s day and age; coding, content creation, riddles, puzzles, games, free play. Many things we already buy for children encourage creativity when given freedom to do as they wish like lego, play doh, colouring books, blocks, stickers. And as any parent comes to learn, kids will make toys and get creative with anything. We used to make guitars with kleenex boxes, paper towel tubes, and elastics. Often we are the catalyst for our children’s capacity for creativity; we set that first example of practical, magical creativity. 

My top tip is to foster the following: 

Curiosity - questions, adventure, exploration

Curiosity is a key pillar of creativity - it is a motivator, a catalyst. Curiosity is the driving force that has us asking questions that lead to creative solutions. It sparks a drive to do something, find something, seek something. How do we foster curiosity? 

• Allow children to ask questions. This can be difficult - especially when they enter their incessant question phase and stumble upon inquiries that are uncomfortable and difficult to answer at an age appropriate level - but guess what, that just forces us to get a little creative too. Never make a child feel small or stupid for having a question. This is their inherent spark, creative energy in its first form. Information comes from asking, information is fuel for creative imaginings. 

• Initiate adventure both in make believe and in the real world. Children follow the example we set them. If they see us having adventures, having fun while solving real and imagined plights with creativity they will emulate that. From D&D tabletop roaming to backyard camping, imaginary journeys to far away lands with magic, to a hike on the trails around your home, adventure can be big or small but it challenges us to think differently - a foundational requirement of creativity. 

• Give them the freedom of exploration. Although we can do a lot by leading by example, creativity is a freedom we cannot show them. They have to experience freedom to explore and gravitate to what interests them, what catches their eyes, things that matter to them, not to you. If it takes an extra ten minutes let them explore the leaves floating in the puddle with a stick on that hike you took them on. The key to this one is to not interfere - unless there is danger afoot of course. It is the freedom to explore on their own that gives them the confidence later to explore creative activities, new ways of thinking, emotions, themselves in healthy ways without fear of judgement or expectation. 

Accessibility - to tools, to space, to resources

As parents we have to make creativity accessible to our kids. I’m sure there are those of us out there who were not given access to the things we needed to explore creativity when we were young. This piece is about giving our kids the opportunity to be creative whether that eb by providing them with the tools, the space or the resources to dig into their creativity and thrive.

• Provide the tools for them to execute and excavate their creativity. This might look like having a pail and shovel for a visit to the beach or sandbox, leaving crayons and coloring books where they can get them on their own, or giving them assistance when they run into a problem they need help solving. Making sure they have access to the tools they need to start learning about their creativity and practicing it on their own in their world is essential to providing them with the opportunity to grow into their creative selves. 

• Give them space both literally and figuratively to create. This could look like setting up a paint station at your craft table, if you have the extra space making them a play room, or simply sitting back and allowing them the time to sit in their creativity and explore. Often children access their creativity out of boredom so giving them space to be bored and learn to entertain themselves is crucial. In a world of overscheduling, extra curriculars, our own busy days juggling kids and work, giving them space to slow down and simply be can be a tall order, but it is worth it.

• Access to resources is a great way to provide kids with a gateway to creativity. A library card, books on varied subjects, learning opportunities, instructional videos, all of these are wonderful ways to engage a kid in creativity, delve into their curiosity, and grant them passage to new places. Resources can launch a child on a journey and it doesn’t have to cost you anything. Provide them with direction when something sparks their interest. 

Support - encouragement, engagement, guidance

Nothing can be done without support. Our job as parents is to support our kids. Full stop. We ourselves need support and seek that from our community to know we are on the right path, to help us become better, and sometimes to simply make it through the day. For our children we are their first and forever support system. Creativity can feel frivolous and indulgent; that does not mean it is less deserving of being supported in our children. It is necessary for survival, it is essential to our beings.

• Be your child’s primary source of encouragement in their creativity. Their peers may think they’re silly, a teacher may tell them they’re no good at colouring or writing or building. There is an entire army called society that will be negative, tell them they’re not good enough, that they’re silly, that creativity is silly, but you are their biggest cheerleader and one of the most influential people in their lives, at least until that shifts to a peer group. Before that time, while they are young you can instill these lessons in them through incredible encouragement of their creative pursuits, their curiosity, their interest.

• Facilitate engagement between the child and their creativity, but also engage with them in their creativity as well and let them see you engage with creativity. Like I said earlier, we lead best by example, or rather, children learn best by example. Showing them that we as adults engage in creativity gives them permission to chase their own creativity. Engaging with them about and in their creativity validates their desire and interest. It gives value to their pursuits. Finally, facilitating engagement for your child and their creativity goes back to providing them with space, tools, resources, and encouragement. The more they are able to engage with their creativity the better chance you have at building creativity into them.

• Helping them navigate creativity through gentle guidance ensures they feel safe and supported in their journey. Creativity is ever changing and shifting as we grow and develop new interests. Normalizing talking about creativity in a positive way signals that they can take their creativity seriously, dispelling narratives of shame, selfishness, and indulgence that society spews. Be their sounding board, their voice of reason, their safe place to express themselves, interrogate themselves and learn about themselves through creativity.    

  
  

Why should I foster creativity in my child?

At this point the question of why we as parents should bother to put in all this time and effort around creativity when many of us hold beliefs that creativity is not secure for traditional success. I want to reiterate that creativity is a mindset as much as it is anything else, and as  a mindset it is a crucial piece for creating successful humans. From my own experience I want to now share with you some significant attributes a life dedicated to cultivating creativity in children can give them. 

Self discipline

The ability to sit and get the job done, to commit to a task and see it through, to drill a skill over and over again, to make yourself do something whether you want to or not and do it to the best of your ability is one many adults lack, and it shows. This is the foundational principle to a good work ethic. Not only does self discipline impact our work ethic, focus, and follow through, it also fosters an understanding of time management. It creates people who are capable of managing themselves and their time to be efficient, effective and invested in what they do and how they do it. 

Self efficacy

Different from self confidence, self efficacy is the belief in your ability to do a specific thing, or respond in a specific context. Though self confidence is amazing and needs to be fostered to create a deep and strong sense of self, self efficacy is more accurate and actually creates a better sense of self awareness because it is skill and situation specific, Self efficacy does not create a fallacy of confidence, yet it primes confidence in one's ability in new situations that are specific to a skill. More accurate, more reliable, more secure, self efficacy developed through creativity can pertain to creative skills as specific as painting and as broad as problem solving. 

Perseverance

The ability to keep going, to push through, to not give up. The drive to want to continue even when things are uncertain and difficult. That is a skill that serves every single person well in life. Creativity is ever shifting, ever changing, always new and exciting, presenting new challenges to learn from and grit your teeth through. Projects can be long and arduous or complex and challenging. Either way, perseverance is learned through creativity by building up tolerance to being uncomfortable, challenged, scared, blocked, stuck. From leveling up a skill to finishing a project or puzzle, creativity pushes us to give up, yet we strive for more, we push towards success, and in doing so we persevere. 

Resilience

Everyone of us has faced failure. Some of us have let it beat us. Others have risen to succeed. Thai is resiliency. Creativity gives children an environment, an activity, a place of controlled failure where they have the opportunity to learn how to rise again and give it another go without severe or damaging consequences. Creativity is a safe place to explore our reactions to failure and figure out how to become resilient in the face of failure before it impacts our livelihoods, relationships, and value of ourselves. We learn how to fail in creativity, we heal from our failure through creativity, and we create our success. 

Critical thinking

Being able to think critically about everything in our world today, including ourselves, is a lost art form. It is no longer taught in schools at any level, no longer practiced in a world that has the answers ready at our fingertips, yet we no longer interrogate this easy information. Creativity forces us to challenge ourselves, to think differently, to learn, to expand, it does this by asking us to change our perspective, to inhabit many perspectives. By shifting outside of ourselves we can start to analyze our own perspective, our bias, our ideas and collect other ways of thinking, of being, of understanding. Thinking critically leads to making better decisions, deeper understanding, diversifying options, and connecting more. 

All of this to say, raising creative children is to raise a dangerous generation of warriors ready for the world, compassionate with others, and strong in themselves. In a society that wants to tell them who they are they will dare to stare it down and show them what they are made of. The will to shy away from their truth or their light. And that makes them dangerous. So yes, I want to raise dangerous children, because in being dangerous to an ignorant status quo, they will create real change in a world of possibility.