The Cost of Exploring Creativity

Rebecca Lewis April 29, 2013

In a paper published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology, researchers at Northwestern University explored the challenges that exploring creativity may have on some people. Their findings show that whilst intense focus may help people achieve success; it may also undermine their flexible thinking skills.

Creativity is a critical aspect of learning. It allows people to solve problems easier, make decisions intelligently, and combat the difficulties and challenges that come along their way to success. It is known that creative people tend to achieve greater things than their less creative colleagues. However, just like others, they have weaknesses too. For the current study, 74 college students with low and high creativity scores were invited to participate in a series of challenges which involved identifying either the details or the big picture in just one second. In these challenges, which totalled 128, participants had to focus on the details before shifting to see the big picture, and vice versa.

The scores show that the highly creative students had more errors identifying either the big picture or the details of it compared to the less creative students.

This is the first study to show that some people with high levels of creativity may focus so much on one aspect that they have difficulties switching to another. This is somehow surprising because for decades, experts believed that creativity partly depends on the person’s ability to quickly switch attention from one detail to the bigger picture of a certain task. Nevertheless, this does not demerit the fact that creativity is essential to being successful in life.

Nurturing Creativity in Children

According to Raquel Farrell-Kirk, a therapist and author of “Tips on Understanding and Encouraging Your Child’s Artistic Development”, one of the most important ways for toddlers to develop creativity is by experimenting with art materials. In her work, she tackled the five stages of creativity development in young children. The first stage refers to the period in which the child starts doing some random scribbling. Here, they are just starting to make a feel of everything – how their crayons feel, how they smell, and what they specifically do. The second stage which usually starts at the age of 2 or 3 is where the child learns to take control of the crayon. He or she may be able to draw figures such as vertical and diagonal lines, circles, and curved lines. At the age of 2 1/2 years to 3 1/2 years, children start to realise that writing is entirely made up of lines, curves and other figures. At this stage, the toddler finds out that he or she draws for a purpose. When the child reaches 3 to 5 years old, he or she starts drawing pictures of objects or people. And later, starts working on letters to form words.

It is very important for children to start developing creativity at the earliest time possible so they can equip themselves with the knowledge and skills they are bound to face, especially when they start going to school. Farrell-Kirk recommends the following tips to encourage creativity in toddlers:

Let them play with art. Art materials have more things to offer than most toys. Give them some paper, crayons or washable paints, homemade salt dough, and other child-friendly materials to enjoy and explore arts.

Let them explore arts on their own. Parents must oversee their children whilst doing some artworks but only to check if they’re not harming themselves (e.g. putting things in their mouth). Children, to fully develop their creativity, must be allowed to explore and learn on their own.

Praise them for their effort, not the outcome. Many parents foster encouragement by praising their children for the results of their effort. But focusing more on the process, rather than the result, has more impact in the child’s development. Instead of saying “you’re the best artist!” it can be more helpful to praise a child by saying “job well done”.

Let children express their feelings through arts. Arts can be the best way to express emotions when there are no words that could best describe them. When children are having tantrums, parents may give them paper and pencil and ask them to draw what their feelings are like. It’s a very effective and powerful way to deal with intense emotions and control them.

Source of this article:

How Your Child’s Writing and Art Changes Over Time