A mommy friend asked me to answer a survey form for one of the children's museum here in the Bay Area and the theme is: as a parent how important creativity is for your kid. As much as I put importance to education and skills, I believe that creativity plays an important role on a kid's future because their creativity is the glue that puts their skills together to produce something that's their own. More than skills, Creativity is the key to thrive; to solve a problem, to create a tangible solution and to workaround whatever limitations and resources at hand.
My boys love to buy play sets, those toys with all materials come in a box with instructions on how to put them together. Most of the time these sets work exclusively, meaning if one new character or version comes along it means we have to buy a new set. We keep buying until we didn't have space for them anymore in our tiny house. Husband and I didn't have a choice but to purge their old toys and stop buying play sets. I replaced them with wooden, and soft blocks, bought Legos and a big box of Duplos from a garage sale. I also made scotch tapes, markers, colors, papers, scissors accessible for them. Unlimited use and unlimited permission to mess the house.
When they ask me to buy them a new play set that they've watched in Youtube, I just encourage them to make use of their blocks to build their own play set and they can make it as big as they want it to be. Until lately I noticed that they are becoming good in creating their own world for their robots and cars. They've made a race track, a science lab for their Rescue Bots, and many more. Husband and I just discovered a way to stimulate their creativity while keeping our pockets safe.
Kids nowadays don't get to play outside as much as we did before, but they can still use their imagination inside the home.
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