The Creative Buzz- Making Mountains out of Monkey Bars

Teaching siblings the art of creativity.

How do you get your house buzzing with creativity? Everybody wants to think their kids can paint masterpieces at their easels even if they only finger-paint chocolate pudding on the countertop. Teaching siblings to be creative will help to raise innovative and confident adults.

Young children can be very creative. They find it emotionally fulfilling to be playful and imaginative, to discover new ways to express themselves, and to come up with new ideas. For example, kids will find 'interesting' clothing combinations or find a great way to climb the monkey bars at the playground.

One of the best things about having more than one child is watching your children play together creatively. You'll have fun watching each kid discover their natural creative abilities while playing with each other.

But creativity is also about your kid's ability to come up with workable solutions. As kids go through life, they need to be able to look at any problem flexibly and imaginatively. Having more than one child means that your kids can draw from each other's strengths to come up with creative solutions: Whether it's a team effort on how to get the baby out of the crib, a group solution on how to get to the top of the monkey bars or a child trying to resolve a squabble with his/her siblings, children learn to work together (for better or for worse) in a family.

Even though every child is naturally creative, parents can still do much to nurture that trait, especially with siblings. Playing 'make-believe' is part of everyone's fondest childhood memories. When siblings are encouraged to use their imaginations, they often find themselves putting on a Broadway production in the backyard or climbing Mount Everest together on the monkey bars.

Ways to Encourage Family Creativity

• Family Arts and Crafts - find a couple of hours every week for art projects. Make collages, take picture with the digital camera, or make macaroni necklaces. The point is to get your kids creating together.
• Imaginative Play - the world is a stage! Transform monkey bars into hilltops and garage ports into stages.
• Nature explorations - send your kids out into the neighborhood on a nature scavenger hunt. You'll be surprised what wonders lie on your block.
• Family celebrations - get all the children involved in party planning. This way they will learn the art of entertaining as well as learn to look forward to each other's special moments.

When you learn to awaken your family's creativity, wonderful things will happen: you'll make meaningful connections with your children in large and small ways; your children will more often engage in their own creative discoveries; and your family will embrace new ways to relax, play, and grow together. With just the simple tools around you-your imagination, basic art supplies, household objects, playground equipment like monkey bars and natural materials-you can transform your family life, and have so much more fun!