Cultivating Childhood Creativity

"Mom, I'm bored."

If you're a parent, you've heard this or the equivalent what seems like a million times a day. If your house is like my house, once the screens blink off the complaints begin. "I have nothing to do." "Can I watch something?" "Can I have a snack?"

As a mom of four, I don't believe in always solving my children's problems. However, I do:

Surround them with books and activity books
Provide them with craft materials. You don't need tons of stuff. Save cardboard boxes and tubes and have crayons, glue, scissors and other basics. (My kids also love clay)
Encourage them to go outside.
Visit the library often.
Allow them to watch craft tutorials
Give them dress-up materials that aren't pre-made costumes, like shawls, hats, belts and scarves. Encourage them to create their own superheroes or characters
Give them two board games with missing pieces and tell them to make a new game with their own rules.

The times I step back and leave my children to their own devices are the times they create the most amazing games. Not sure what was going on here with my daughter and son, but I'm sure it was a: dire and b: epic.

A book about Creativity
When I was a kid, we played a game where we'd think up a dangerous situation and then say what we would do.
"What if the house was on fire?"
"What if you were in a bank during a robbery?"
"What if a monster was coming after you?"
My kids play this game, and one day, I heard my daughter growling, and then a door slammed, as my son yelled, "tigers can't open doors!"
So a book was born, and after much time and effort, and with the help of an amazing author from Vietnam, Trandang, Tigers Can't Open Doors has become a reality.

If you'd like a copy, you can find it on Amazon for Kindle and paperback. Look HERE. 
Tigers Can't Open Doors is about two boys who face a goofy, shape-shifting monster. They keep thinking of creative ways to thwart each creature, but in the end, they might just need help from mom.