It’s no secret that children are naturally creative thinkers who can turn any box into a space ship, submarine or skating rink with a blink of their imagination. However, as children grow older, they acquire more experience and knowledge, ultimately losing the majority of their ability to think creatively. This paradox is often called “experience vs. creativity,” as the more knowledge a person possesses, the more likely they are to draw upon their past life experiences as opposed to solving problems in a creative way.
While practical, logical thinking makes sense in an “assembly-line” world, the inherent automation of the future means that by the time today’s children enter the workforce, they will need to continue to be innovative, creative and flexible in order to be successful.
Below, you’ll find 3 skills that will be essential to your child’s future success (Hint: they all require creativity)!
1.Mental Elasticity and Complex Problem Solving
The future is going to bring about problems your children have never seen before in a world you’ve never experienced. In order to solve these problems, they’ll need to have the mental flexibility to think outside of the box, see the big picture and rearrange problems to find a solution.
• Find multiple solutions: Expose your children to difficult problems early on, and help them tackle the problems using different, creative solutions. Encourage them to make mistakes so they can understand that taking risks to find solutions is a good thing, even if their solutions fail. The more solutions they can find, the bendier their brains will get!
2.Critical Thinking
As they grow older, your children will need to constantly analyse various situations, consider multiple solutions and make decisions on the fly through creative reasoning.
• Pause at problems: When your children have difficulty solving a task, don’t step in and help right away. Instead, give your children some time to try different solutions and solve the task at hand on their own. Similarly, rather than giving your children immediate answers to their questions, ask them follow-up, open-ended questions to help them come to their own conclusions.
3.Interdisciplinary Knowledge
Your children's future career will require them to pull information from many different fields to come up with creative solutions to future problems.
• Explore often: Make sure your children are exploring anything and everything they are interested in. Whether they love to read, sing or draw, it is important to expose them to a multitude of different activities, ideas, and cultures so they can draw on unique perspectives when solving difficult problems.
4.Leadership
Work on your children’s leadership skills today to ensure they become the leaders of tomorrow. Start by teaching them skills such as negotiation, emotional intelligence, and patience through daily exercises.
• Find a mentor: Historically, mentorship only existed for those in the workforce or graduate school but finding the right mentor from an early age will give your children a huge advantage as it will expose them to successful role models to look up to and emulate.
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