Observing Our Kids
One way of enhancing our kids’ creativity is to first examine how our kids see things around them. What do I mean by this? Once I took my kids to shop for curtains (My Snow White was 3 years old at that time). I found a pretty floral curtain suitable enough for the kids’ room. I was about to pay for it when I just popped a question and asked Snow White if she liked it. No answer from her but instead she ran to grab a curtain with cute soldiers and animals prints on it. Then I looked and starred a while, trying to ‘see’ the beauty of this curtain selected by my child. The curtain was not that matching such as the background colour of the cloth although the prints on it were quite alright. Obviously, Snow White must have loved the printed soldiers and animals , something that she can relate well( I have been reading many stories to her since she was 2 years old.) I did not buy the curtain and threw her idea aside, she did not show much disappointment and I paid for the floral curtain. Somehow, this incident made me think a few times whether it would be better to buy her selected cloth. Slowly, I realised that since her interest is on animals and stories characters, develop her interest! Let her be surrounded by these things (of course , it needs not be too overwhelming). So what appeared so ordinary to me can be seen differently by a child.
As my kids grow bigger now and whenever, they stop and look at something interestingly, I would also pause my footsteps and examine the things together with them. It helps me in many areas. For example, Snow White likes butterflies, I would just read stories which have butterflies being mentioned in the book. Once I drew her a butterfly as requested by her and when she applies colours to the butterfly, she immediately painted a colourful one for me. She also told me that she has seen butterflies with circles on the wings that look like ‘eyes’ and is very scary to her. So I told her a little that these ‘eyes ‘ protect the butterflies from being eaten up by enemies and also that in future, she may include these ‘eyes’ in her butterflies to create patterns on the wings. She said, ‘ok’. I just have to wait and see…. Not only that, her interest is spilled over to Science, where she can tell me orally about caterpillars and cocoons.
