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Creative Parenting
by Sheila Somerlock Ruth
"The dynamic principle of fantasy is play, which belongs also to the
child, and as such it appears to be inconsistent with the principle of
serious work. But without this playing with fantasy no creative work has
ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is
incalculable." —Carl Gustav Jung
Parenting requires creativity. It's easy to get caught up in the
mundane, day-to-day routine and forget how creative we must be as
parents. Every day presents new challenges, and every day we must think
of new solutions to those challenges.
While there are many resources to help us--parenting books, magazines,
web sites, and discussion groups--in the end it all comes down to
resourcefulness and creativity.
Every child is different, and every parent is different, so every
solution must be different. Advice from experts and other parents can
give us ideas and help us in the right direction, but we must adapt
those ideas to our own situations. And every now and then, we come up
with a flash of inspiration, a creative idea that is uniquely ours.
I had just such an inspiration recently. My 4-1/2 year old son refused
to go to bed, insisting that there were monsters in his room. This is a
kid who has loved spooky things for quite some time, and who "knows"
monsters aren't real. But for some reason, suddenly the monsters became
real, and they were scary! All my reassurances didn't help at all.
Then I remembered reading that you should acknowledge a child's fears,
instead of making light of them. So I started trying to see it from his
perspective. If the monsters are real, what could we do about them? The
answer that popped into my head was, "Well of course, we have to scare
them away." I asked him where the monsters were, and he said, "Under the
bed." I said, "Shhh, lets sneak up on them." I tiptoed to the bed and
bent down to look under it. My son followed nervously, but he burst out
laughing when I yelled at the monster at the top of my lungs: "Waaaaaaaah."
After we had a good laugh together, we scared the monsters out of his
closet and a few other places together. He enjoyed yelling and then
laughing, and with the monsters banished, he went to sleep with no
problems.
We all have the power to be creative. But it can be tough to be creative
when the baby is crying, the kids are fighting, and our brains are
fogged with lack of sleep.
Here are a few tips to help you.
First of all, take a step back. Unless you are dealing with a situation
which requires an immediate response, such as a child in a dangerous
situation or hurting another child, take a minute to calm yourself.
Tell your children you need to think. Then walk away for a minute, take
some deep breaths, try to relax and clear your mind. Even better, put in
a video tape for the kids and go take a bubble bath. I'm not advocating
using the TV as a babysitter, but it won't hurt now and then, and the
result will be a happier, more relaxed parent. It's much easier to think
creatively when we are relaxed.
Once you are (somewhat) relaxed, you can start fermenting ideas. In
order to do think creatively, you need to break out of standard modes of
thinking. One way to do that is to look at the problem from a different
perspective.
Looking at an issue from your child's perspective can give you a lot of
insight. To do this, you need to really try to see the world how they
see it. Try to remember how you felt when you were a child, and try to
think like a child. Thinking like a child with the experience of an
adult can be a powerful combination.
You can also play with other perspectives. How would Oprah Winfrey solve
the problem? What would Big Bird do? Be as silly as you want; humor is
another good tool for enhancing creativity.
All this sounds like it takes time, and it can. But it doesn't have to.
You can spend days or hours coming up with new ideas, or one can pop out
in a second. It all depends on the scope and urgency of the problem, and
on your state of mind.
The more you practice thinking creatively, the better you will get at
it. And sometimes a crisis may force an innovative solution.
Creative thinking guru Roger von Oech says that sometimes we need a
"whack on the head" to jolt us out of our routine patterns of thinking.
So the next time you find your child jumping on the sofa or refusing to
go to bed, it might just be the whack on the head that you need.
No one can be creative all the time. Some days, the best response I can
manage is, "Because I said so." But it is those creative moments, those
flashes of inspiration, that define us as parents.
To learn more about developing your creativity, read
A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative,
by Roger Von Oech
"Creative Parenting" is Copyright 2000 MyCinnamonToast.
All Rights Reserved
Sheila Somerlock Ruth is the founder of MyCinnamonToast.com, a web site
devoted to strengthening family connections through good parenting and
genealogy. Subscribe to our parenting newsletter at:
http://www.mycinnamontoast.com/subscribe.html
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