How to Inspire Your Child's Creativity

All children are creative and imaginative in many ways. Listen to your daughter or son sing songs they composed themselves, build a skyscraper from blocks or guide their dolls and action figures in countless adventures. Creativity needs to nurtured like any other skill or talent. Here are some ways to give your child's creativity a boost. You may be amazed at what your child can come up with.

Turn Off the television and computer. Electronics have their place and their own positive influences, but they provide little creative inspiration.

Replace most coloring books with plain paper. Coloring books can be inhibiting to a child's creativity. They may feel compelled to color the objects the "correct" color and stay within the lines. It may feel wrong to your child to color the grass blue and the sky green, but if that is what they feel like expressing at that moment, they should have no restrictions on doing so.

Vary the art mediums offered to your child. Let your child play with crayons, markers, chalk, paints and clay. Point out the differences in the materials and what each one can do. Designate an area of the house where you will not be overly concerned with making a mess. Give your child only the bare minimum of rules regarding common sense and safety, and then let them be free.

Listen to various genres of music. Music stimulates the creative area of the brain. Let them sing and dance and make up silly rhymes. Teach them all the traditional children's songs and also expose them to country, classical and rock and roll. Observe which type of music has the most positive impact and make it a daily part of your child's life.

Take a walk. Being outside and seeing the world around them provides countless opportunities for inspiration. Point out birds, insects, trees and flowers. Watch the plane flying overhead. Smell the neighbor's rose bushes. Listen to the sound of the woodpecker. Using all five senses sparks creativity and imagination.