Imagination

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." 
~Mark Twain


One of my favorite memories of being a dad is when Finn first started playing make believe. It wasn't that long ago, just a few months back. He was playing with a plastic ladle and pointed it at my face. I bent down and loudly slurped a spoonful of faux soup from it. I'll never forget the look on his face: this little smirk, like I had just told him a secret and then said, don't tell Mommy!

A second later he put the ladle to his own mouth, rudely slurped and then uttered a satisfied mmmmm. I was so proud. And I was also really excited too. Being able to make believe is such a critical developmental step for a child. It symbolizes a child's ability for abstract thought, and more importantly, an ability to be creative.


I've written before about the characteristics I most want my son to posses and in addition to compassion, I hope my children are creative. Creativity is more than just an ability to make something that is greater than the sum of its parts, it's the ability to apply what we know to solve tangential problems in new ways. Being creative means being able to mold the world to ones own ideas, to turn a problem into a game, to slip through fences that appear to be too tight of a fit for a more obtuse thinker.

True creativity is thought without limitation. Creativity means inspiration is a constant companion. It's a super power; it's seeing through walls, it's optimism without reason, it's coloring outside the lines and it's baking cookies on the living room floor with a rice cooker and a wok. They were delicious!

And I truly think that Finn's success will be more linked to his creativity and persistence than to his latent intelligence. Which begs the question, how do I nurture his creativity?

I started by looking to TED where I found a number of talks, most notable one by Ken Robinson about how schools kill creativity. My hope was to get some clues for how parents can nurture creativity in their kids. What I heard was this; find your children's strengths and support their interests, whatever they are - chess, frogs, diesel engines, quasars, or eating imaginary food.