Your Child Deserves To Be Creative

Part of spiritual parenting is understanding your child’s generation. This is not “The Wonder Years”. The harsh reality is that even if you are protecting your child’s innocence, chances are their friend’s parents aren’t. These days we do need to ask the parents of our child’s friend if there is unsupervised time on the computer, and is there potential access to pornography, or even guns in the home. We need to go online and see if there are any predators in that home, or in the neighborhood. We need to know that there aren’t any drugs or alcohol in the home.

I have been working with children for 30 years and times have certainly changed. Today’s generation of parents cannot afford to be distracted, detached and oblivious. Modern parents text and talk on the phone more than they look at or communicate with their own children. I often hear people talk about how this generation of children seem tuned out, detached and lack imagination and creativity, but how can we ask them to tune in when their parents are not? They learn their coping and survival skills from us. If we tune out, so will they.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try ~ Dr. Seuss

I live in the country and often see children collecting shells, looking at birds and touching plants while their parent talks on the phone or text, missing this amazing spiritual learning moment with their child, who is discovering their environment and mesmerized by Mother Nature’s beauty. We have a whole generation of parents who will look back and be able to say, “I have no idea what happened to the last 18 years of my child’s life, but I can tell you how to use any feature on my smart phone.”

We cannot expect our children to be present if we are not. When was the last time you lay on the ground with your child and asked what they saw in the clouds? We have robbed this generation of children of their imagination and creativity. One or two decades ago in the acting class I teach, I was teaching the kids how to improvise. They would come up with their own story and own cast and perform it. It was brilliant and my favorite part of class. The kids loved it and asked to improvise every class. Now, when I ask them to do this, the response I almost always get is, “What do you mean? What are we supposed to do?”

I reiterate that they can say and do whatever they imagine, and they need to decide what the story line is about and how it will play out. But they literally cannot comprehend the idea that I am not telling them what to do, and that they need to come up with the lines and script themselves. Instead of seeing the light bulb flash over their head with excitement over the assignment, I see boredom and dread. Creativity has become a burden. Imagination a foreign concept.

It is truly terrifying. But reality TV, texting, Facebook and video games actually suck the creativity out of the psyches of our children, like a vacuum cleaner sucks dirt out of a carpet. We have a whole generation who think that writing music is taking a song from the sixties or seventies and re-writing it, adding a more pronounced beat and some curse words. They think singing is using a auto corrector, instead of training the voice over time for years to gain strength and control of the breath and vocal chords. They think dancing is copying the moves from their favorite pop star on MTV.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will ~ George Bernard Shaw

Our creativity is our soul. Every culture has dance, singing and music. It unites us. Robbing our children of their creativity can lead to depressions and isolation. Children need to feel like they are putting something positive into the planet, especially the old souls. But reality TV, texting, Facebook and video games do not require a child to put anything out. Instead they are merely digesting. And too often they are digesting filth and spiritual toxins.

It is essential to spend time every day with your child in a creative setting. Coloring, drawing, listening to or playing music, dancing, tracing the clouds, scrap booking, crocheting, knitting, beading, and so forth. Not only does it stimulate the part of their brain they deals with memory, but it will help them to feel grounded to their bodies, their life, the Earth and to you.

Creativity is linked to our Third Chakra. Just the simple act of being creative allows you to tap into all of the qualities of this chakra: will-power, determination, drive, feeling empowered, independence, emotional stability and independence.  And just like creativity taps into the positive qualities of this chakra, not being creative or being deprived of our creativity can block these qualities, leading to emotional instability, depression, feeling depressed, resentful, hostile, weak, apathetic, indifferent and detached.

Your child deserves creativity and you deserve a child who doesn’t have dreams, desires and gifts that are dormant.