Fostering Creativity

I did a great mom thing yesterday. It was purely by accident. It started with a bad mom thing. Let me explain.

Holly had been asking me to play with her all day. I am ashamed to say I put her off each time she asked. (Hence, the bad mom thing.) She would get distracted and go off to play something else. But by the time 5:00 rolled around, she had had it. She was begging me to play with her. Of course, the 5:00 hour is often the worst hour of my day. Everyone is hungry, Dad isn’t home quite yet, homework is forcefully being done, and I am trying to fix dinner. And yesterday the chaos had the addition of Holly pleading for a mommy playmate. I gave it to her straight, “Holly, I am not going to play with you right now. I have got to fix dinner.”

She promptly dissolved into tears. “You never, ever play with me Mom! I just want to play Pollys with you!”

“Holly, I am sorry, but I really can’t play right now.” I sternly replied. “I have an idea. Go get your coloring book and crayons and you can color at the bar while I fix dinner.”

She choked back a wave of tears, “Will you tell me a story while I color?” This was an easy request. I am again ashamed to say I didn’t really want to use my brain to make up a story while I fixed dinner. Fortunately I did it anyway.

I proceeded to tell her a story. We have a formula, Holly and I, for our stories. It involves a girl named Holly, a magical closet filled with magical dresses, and the adventures the girl has each time she wears a different magical dress. If I throw enough unicorns, rainbows, and butterflies in the story it will be a smashing success. Last night’s story was about a blue dress trimmed with green ribbons that happened to turn the girl named Holly into a mermaid.
Kate and Aaron began slyly eavesdropping on the story. Once I noticed them, I put them into the story as characters. My audience was captivated. Greg was working late, so we ate at the bar and kept the story going during dinner. When I finished the story, the kids stuck around talking about it.

I helped them start a new story and explained how to tell part of the story and then pass it to the next person. It was so fun to watch them. I was amazed at how all three kids were cooperating and listening to each other. They were having so much fun and I had completely pulled myself out of the storytelling. It wasn’t perfect. There were some tears and shouts when Holly made herself the star of the story and ignored the other character’s parts. I thought the game was over then. But they calmed down and began acting out the story while telling it. Blue blankets became the ocean, a bug net became a fish net, and a corduroy bag was a seaweed purse. For thirty glorious minutes, our home became the wide open ocean and the spare room was the mermaid city.

My older kids are beginning to leave the land of make-believe. Kate visits only occasionally. Aaron keeps one foot in and one out. Does this mean their creativity is disappearing or just getting buried? I’m not sure. But I am sure that children possess creativity in its purest form. Maybe growing older wears it down. Somehow yesterday I stumbled upon a way to get Kate and Aaron a free pass back into fantasyland. My great mom thing was deciding to tell Holly a story. The result of that action was all four kids became entwined in a make-believe world, and that part had nothing to do with me.