by Mizie Cheng

Created on: January 16, 2009

Your child is creative, you feel the pride, but sometimes the resentment too! Sometimes awed at how your child is so creative, sometimes anguished at how he or she baffles and confuses you?

Your child is "special". As a parent, you will need to exercise creative ways in handling your child too.

1. Motivate and encourage your child.

He or she is a young kid, and as children, they do not know what is good or not good for them. Neither do they know what their strengths and weaknesses are. As parents, you have the responsibility of deciding what's best for him or her, and observing their growth and development and guiding them in the path you judge best for his or her life-physically, mentally, educationally, emotionally, and etcetera. When you observe and find that your child is creative, you will need to motivate and encourage your child to develop that creative streak. Motivate and encourage by providing avenues to express that creativity, praising and affirming your child for expressing the creativity, talking and discussing the area of creativity with your child. Basically, gving space for the child to grow in that creativity instead of pinning him or her down for being "different" and "special".

2. Putting discipline in place.

Motivating and encouraging creativity can be overdone sometimes, and parents go to the other extreme of being indulgent toward their children, giving the excuse of their child being "different" and "special", therefore requiring special treatment, i.e. lack of discipline. Children with an extra creative streak need to have discipline in their lives as well, as like other supposedly "normal" children. Without discipline, routine, structure, boundaries, children cannot develop important skills needful for everyday functioning, and if they miss this skill, growing up into adulthood will pose many challenges for them. The adult should understand discipline and what is expected and what is not. However, a child who grows into an adult without understanding this will be an adult in age, but a kid in thought and action. Discipline is important for the child to learn when to do the right things at the right time, the right and wrong thing to do in the right and wrong situation. Creative children need discipline, no partiality towards them.

3. Seek friends for your child.

Human beings need social support, and your child is no different. All the more, being creative means that he or she is different from other children, and need different types of support. In whichever arenas that your child is creative in, help him or her seek out friends and support from others who are creative in that arena too. Iron sharpens iron. Your child will grow and develop well within a community that understands and supports the expression of that creativity unlike other communities that are not focused on that creative streak. Not discounting the power of "normal" friends, but they will need friends who understand their creativity.

It is not the easiest thing in the world to parent a creative child. But trust that you are doing the best; no parent wants to hurt their own child. Learn as you go along.

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