15 Ways to Nurture Creativity in Kids

I have been an artist since I was 2 years old, drawing bears in overalls all over my sketchbooks (and walls), and now writing and illustrating my own children's books. 

Since having my daughter in 2019, I have learned more about the importance of letting my child lead the creative moments in our house instead of me interjecting and taking over because I’m a professional artist. I needed to give her the “Right” encouragement. But what is the “right” encouragement? 

Here are 15 things I am doing in my home to inspire my daughter be the most creative kid she can be:

You Have to Be Up for Anything (Safe, Of Course)

My daughter is the “director” in our house. She lets us know when it’s time for role play, drawing, painting, dancing, singing. When she comes to me asking for me to take part in something that requires imagination I try my best to jump right in because I know how happy it makes her to have me involved in her play.. You have to be up for getting messy, getting wet, being the horse your child rides in on, or getting poked and prodded as your “doctor” gives you life saving medicine.

Let Your Child Lead the Creative Process

When adults become involved in pure "playing" and "exploration," the dynamic can shift. Adults tend to intervene, offering assistance and imposing their own ideas on how things should be done, leading the child to strive for doing it "right." However, rather than dominating the entire process, I take a mindful approach by observing and honoring my child's requests to the best of my abilities. When time allows, I let her decide when she’s done playing to ensure I don’t cut her creative time short. 

Let Your Child Dictate When/Where to Display Their Work or Document Their Process

I try to keep most of my daughter’s artwork that she makes at home and I display the ones she asks for me to put in a frame or on the refrigerator. When it comes to singing/dancing, she will tell me when she wants photos or videos taken of her or when she wants me to put the camera phone away. Giving her authority over these moments lets her know that her talent and creativity belong to HER, and that she gets to decide when she wants to “perform” for other people. Expecting a child to be creative in front of a lot of people on the spot can lead to a child becoming embarrassed of their creativity/talent. 

Invest In Open-Ended Toys to Create an “Imagination Station” at Home

Anything such as blocks, paper, markers, crayons, paint, building sets, toy animals, dress up clothes, makeup, glitter, glue, and dry foods like rice, beans, noodles, etc can be used in multiple ways to encourage creativity. Easy access to all these materials will keep the kids interested in the long term, always finding a new material to focus on any given day. A station like this can also encourage organization so that the parent and child can keep a good inventory of all the fun things there are to play with.

Judgment Leads to Risk Aversion Which Kills Creativity

Just because something is “supposed” to be a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s how it has to be for your child. Such as, a rainbow elephant, sure! All song lyrics can be made into a remix! There is a certain tune that my daughter, husband and I use in our home and we change up the lyrics constantly, for whatever is happening in the moment. It’s important to let your children know that it’s okay to do things differently and you can encourage them to use their imagination and creativity without trying to fit into specific expectations. It is most important that your child feels capable of taking risks and being original. Taking risks is ONLY possible when children aren’t ridiculed for doing something “wrong.” It is THEIR imagination at work here, not ours, so nothing is wrong about the world they are creating in their head when they are attempting creativity in the real world. Praise their efforts, as well as the risks they take. Kids and teens need verbal affirmation from their parents more than anyone else. If your child is proud of the thing they did and wants the creative piece on display, show it off to friends and family so that they know that you’re their biggest hype-person and #1 fan.

Have Unstructured Time

Inspiration for getting creative often comes out of nowhere, sometimes when children are having quiet time alone. This is why scheduling creative time can be limiting, as kids are ‘expected’ to be creative for a set limit of time. By allowing a couple of hours a day with a flexible timeline, it can encourage kids to go with the flow and start creating when the inspiration hits. When able, allowing children to play and create without any time constrictions will allow their creativity room to breathe and take as many turns as the child allows.

Role Play

My daughter is big on role play and as long as you’ve been watching the same movies and reading the same books as your kids, you’ll know enough to play along with whatever they are creating. Role play helps kids develop a problem-solving approach when issues arise in real life, since often they are mixing the imaginary world with real-life obstacles. Here’s some fun role play ideas that are a staple in our home: doctor’s/vet’s office making everyone feel better, pilot talking to their passengers, teacher teaching students a new lesson, superheroes swooping in to save us, unicorns looking for their lost rainbows, dinosaurs living amongst people and princesses/princes saving their kingdom from the evil villains.

Show YOUR Creativity

Children often learn more from what they see YOU doing than the directions you give, meaning if you’re exploring YOUR creativity, kids will most likely want to do the same, but you have to be willing to fail. Create something and show them how it didn’t work out. Create something and show them how it DID work out. Whether you want to plant seeds in the garden, paint a portrait or cook a new dish, let them get involved in your creative process. By doing this, when they are taking the lead in their own creative projects, they’ve have a broader set of ideas to pull from.

Remove Emotional Attachment from the Creative Outcome

As kids get older and their creative projects more complex, you will inevitably have a vision for how it should turn out. Your child might have a completely different vision. Detach yourself from THEIR outcome. Their creative endeavors are theirs - You can take pride in your own work and let them take pride in their own.

Have Fun & a Sense of Humor

Laugh….have fun….laugh a lot. Humor is a key ingredient in creativity. Laugh at situations when they both go right or wrong, laugh at all the little surprises, laugh at all the little mistakes, laugh at yourself. (But probably best not to laugh at your child’s mistakes…unless they laugh first.) Lighten up and get silly!

Tap into your Child’s Interests

Think about things that bring your child joy, things they love to do, areas they excel in. Do they play instruments? Do they come up with fantastical scenarios when role-playing? Do they love to draw, paint or make stuff with their own hands? Your child’s interests will change and evolve but if you notice your child engaging in some repetitive behavior, such as stacking, cutting and threading, they’re trying to master a new skill. My daughter, for instance, kept falling off of her bike on purpose, even when I knew she knew how to ride it perfectly well (a balance bike without pedals.) I asked her why she kept falling off on purpose, and in a very round-about way, after many, many questions, I understood that she was trying to learn how to fall without hurting herself because she wanted to get a bike with pedals soon. Wow! At 4, she was already trying to figure out how to play safely. Sometimes it takes a few questions to figure out our kids motives and in this instance, I was so impressed at my daughters' forethought and desire to get better at bike-riding.

Praise the Effort / Perfection Doesn’t Exist

As your child creates, they are using their chosen material in many ways to figure out how it works, to understand what they can and can’t do with it. They are also working out their own preferences, their likes and dislikes. Praise their efforts, as well as the risks they take. Kids and teens need verbal affirmation from their parents more than anyone else. If your child is proud of the thing they did and wants the creative piece on display, show it off to friends and family so that they know that you’re their biggest hype-person and #1 fan.

Find Art All Around

Provide them with creative opportunities outside. If they love to paint or draw, find art lessons, or, like I do, take them outside to draw something in their backyard, or in the neighborhood. Get them out in nature where they can start to see art in natural things. Taking a hike means you can find things with interesting shapes, colors, combinations of colors, things that can inspire creating something new. Do they love to sing or desire to play an instrument? Interested in dance lessons? Drama club? This is where those adult-centric networking skills will come in handy, finding all the classes or groups that your kid would be interested in exploring.

Let Them Dress How They Want

Besides school uniforms or formal events, giving your kids the freedom of self-expression through their clothing, makeup, body paint, temporary tattoos, hairstyle, etc is a daily way you can nurture their creativity. This is an important part of finding who they are and showing the world how they want to present themselves - therefore trying to tell us a lot about them without them having to say anything….much like making art.

Let Them Decorate Their Room How They Want

Whether they have their own room, share a room with a sibling and only have a small space to call their own, give them artistic license to express their creativity in their space. After 2 years of saying her favorite color is red…we finally painted my daughter’s room red and reupholstered a couple chairs to match for a little reading nook. She now spends a lot more time up there knowing she had a say in the decorations. If you are renting, this could become tricky but there are a lot of temporary ways to decorate a space. Temporary decorations are good for any home, since kids' favorite things change quite often.