You know how there are things we teach our kids like color inside the lines or don’t write on the walls? I’m not a big fan of teaching kids this stuff. I mean, of course we don’t want Sammy going all over the house writing on the walls but why not give kids a wall they can write on? In my mind this will promote creativity but at the same time you are still teaching rules because they need to understand it is only this ONE wall.
I think it’s imperative that we teach kids to think outside the box, be creative, and look at things from all perspectives. We live in such an odd world right now. When school funding gets cut what’s the first to go…art, music, sports? It’s crazy to me that we are teaching the creativity out of our kids. We’re saying math is more important than creative thinking. Beyond that, why in the world are we teaching math to kids today the same way we did 20, 30, and 50 years ago?
Times have changed and it’s time to raise our kids to be free thinkers, artistic, creative, and open minded. I think math and science are massively important, but some kids are going to be into those things so we need to have the arts available to them as well. Sir Ken Robinson has given a couple of absolutely amazing and spot on talks at TED, here is a link to one of them. In this one he talks about how he thinks schools kill creativity.
I got a bit serious there but I have a point. Annie and I are hoping to raise Sammy to be creative and free thinking. We can teach him this while still having a solid structure in place and teaching him “the rules”, in our opinion. One way of being creative with him (although he is still too young to understand) was by painting his room different colors and painting his ceiling to look like the sky. Recently Annie and I went in to add some “decorative” painting…nothing special, just fun stuff to make his room a little more quirky.
The theme in his room has been Dr. Seuss inspired to some degree, which is where we came up with the squiggley line ideas, etc. As he gets older we will give him a wall in his room to draw or paint on. I think that’s a cool outlet for a child. We’re also thinking about using magnetic paint or chalk board paint, or both, and paint some part of one of the walls and use that as a place where we can put photos. On magnetic paint we could use small magnets to hold them up and on the chalk board paint we could pin the photos and use chalk to write next to each photo.
Anyways…the purpose of this post was to show you Sammy’s room now that we are pretty much done painting it but obviously I had to get on my soapbox for a second. There are important rules we should pass on to our children, but being a “traditional” thinker or someone that only thinks inside the system is not one of the things we should pass on…in my opinion. I think creative, free, independent thinking is crucial to being a problem solver. So, squiggley paint lines in his room is hopefully the start to all that…haha.
What kind of creative things have you done with your kids? Cheers all!
LOVE it! We let Lauren have the back of her bedroom door in our condo when we first got married. She painted all over it. It was kind of heartbreaking to leave it behind, but fun to have started a tradition of non-traditional decorating that she’s carried forward to this day (so have we). F*ck “staying inside the lines”!!!! Way, WAY too limiting.
@Kim Jones Kim…that’s so cool. That’s how it should be…in my opinion!! It’s just crazy to me that we attempt, in any way, to shut down their creativity! Cheers to ya girl! 🙂
I had the pleasure…and challenge of raising a son who, from day 1, pretty much had his own play book. Great kid, smart, funny, inquisitive. But “coloring inside the lines” was not his style. School learning bored him, so I had to come up with lots of creative ways for him to learn. Mostly hands on. A lot more work perhaps for me, but in the end we learned a lot together. Huge learning experience for me as well. And not always easy to deal with other parents and schools administrators who believe there is only one way to learn…their way.
No kidding Xochitl…the current system of education is very “inside the lines” and it can be extremely difficult to raise a kid who is not inside the lines in that system. In a previous marriage I had a stepson and he was a high energy, creative kid that could not learn in the “sit still, be quiet, don’t touch anything” system. It’s a challenge but as parents it is our responsibility to fight those challenges and do what’s right for our kid. Cheers to ya!! 🙂
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