Stories enlighten and delight kids. When kids are told stories from their point of view, where they act like the heroes on an adventure or even themselves dealing with real-life issues like bullying or sadness over family losses, it allows them to explore those problems on their terms without being told what to do beforehand.
Above all, our cultural and developmental history revolves around stories. Almost everything we studied in history imparted important lessons via stories only. It means that stories also have the power to develop people's perspectives of looking at different things.
Relationship Between Creative Thinking Skills And Stories
You must have heard about the essence of creativity and creative thinking to excel in contemporary times, especially concerning future leaders, who are our children. Creativity is necessary for innovation and solving problems. However, it is not something that can be taught or learned through textbooks. To develop creative thinking skills, kids need to practice creativity with stories.
Well, stories are an excellent way to spark the creativity of a kid and get their imaginative juices flowing. It gives them the chance to escape reality for a while, which allows them to use their minds in many new ways. Nonetheless, Creative thinking skills are a vital part of being successful in the 21st century.
In this blog post, we shall discuss how stories can improve creative thinking skills for kids and some tips on making it work for you!
Who is a Creative Thinker?
A creative thinker is a person who can come up with novel and innovative ideas, often in response to an open-ended challenge. This person is someone who is most likely to give an unconventional answer to other questions. The creators in our society tend to think outside the box and make creative solutions happen in the world around us.
How Storytelling Boosts Creative Thinking Skills Of Kids?
Storytelling often helps to build young minds. A healthy imagination helps children in many ways. It shapes who they are as individuals, and it even encourages them to be more creative. It releases stress, enhances learning ability, boosts creativity, improves social skills, and creates a positive outlook in life. A study revealed that storytelling builds reading comprehension and expands vocabulary. It leads to better cognitive development for kids.
In addition, reading storybooks is an excellent way of nurturing these abilities in small children. Listening improves literacy skills, and the use of language generally increases while enhancing their spelling and grammar skills! The act of storytelling can also teach kids about morals or life lessons while helping them create imaginative scenarios from which they learn about themselves as literate individuals. Storytelling is crucial for your kids as it aids them to do better.
For children, storytelling can be whatever you want it to be - a bedtime story, a fairy tale read at the dinner table with your family or a folktale that you tell around the campfire. The beauty of stories is that it allows creativity in a way that does not mandate perfection.
As Kevin Cole says, Creating from nothing creates too much pressure for learners.
When children are listening to a story, it involves three unique attributes.
It has suspense hooks.
It has got high-stakes drama.
It features themes and characters of moral complexity.
Also Read: Curiosity, Creativity, And Criticism: Why This Combination Is Essential In The Innovation Process?
Ways Stories Can Boost Creative Thinking Skills Of Kids
Teach Kids Different Ways To Solve A Problem
Kids need to learn multiple ways of solving each problem. Be it a Mathematics equation or an issue they might face in real life, kids should know that there are more than one solution and different perspectives. These skills can help them approach the problems from many angles. Thus, even if things do not go their way at first, they will learn how to change them for themselves!
Ask them what is the opposite of something in a given set - such as "What is the opposite of an orange"? Provide the answer when they struggle at first. Then ask, "How would that solve this problem?" With the help of stories, ask them questions like, 'what could have been the best possible ending?', 'which character was good/bad and why?', etc.
Create Role Playing
Role-playing goes far beyond imagination. It ties together a few skills that are essential for developing kids. First, it requires articulation -- which is the ability to confidently share thoughts and ideas. Second, role play teaches children how to suspend their sense of reality in order.
It might be a surprise for some of you but role-playing can help your kids boost their creativity. We are not talking about teaching them to be elves or pirates here - the goal of this exercise is to teach them how to empathize with others’ perspectives and, eventually, think outside black and white.
(For example: imagine what a video game would look like if you were from Mars!)
Ask Your Kids Open-ended Questions
Open-ended questions allow kids to think creatively. They encourage them to ask “why” and that often leads to an entire host of other creative thoughts and ideas. It stimulates the child's design process, helping them tap their creativity while also learning how they work best as individuals.
Children learn a lot from a discussion, and one of the most important topics to focus on is questioning. When you are not asking your child "closed-ended" questions such as "Is there more to this story?" or "What do you think will happen next?", but instead ask them open-ended questions like, "What would you like to happen now?". This way, children can flourish creatively and engage in divergent thinking.
Teach Kids To Learn From Mistakes
Mistakes will inevitably happen, but when they make, it is important to focus on the positives. Mistakes are a great way to learn, but only if we find the positives. When your child makes a mistake, you should encourage them by suggesting new creative solutions and reminding them of how far they have come in their learning process. To make the process smoother, perhaps tell them a story to deliver your lesson.
Besides, when you help with homework or teach new skills like spelling-out vocabulary words for fun instead of just correcting mistakes until it sounds right; this teaches children how to approach challenges from different angles while having lots of fun!
Let Your Kid's Mind Wander!
Giving free time to kids and playing games can create more focus. Studies show that periods of boredom lead to increased productivity as kids assemble puzzles or draw - which is what creativity needs to be productive!
One study from the University of Cincinnati looked at adult subjects and their link to creative thinking. What they found was that when we're bored (for example as happens when one is unfamiliar with an environment or task), our minds wander, speculation occurs, and ultimately imaginative associations are made that may not have happened had we been in a more familiar setting.
So it is not just our brainstorming skills either; the unstructured playtime allows for analysis, synthesis, imagination- it strengthens their minds and sharpens their thinking.
Summing Up!
Creative thinking is a skill that every child needs. And it is not just for the artsy kids, either. Creative thinkers have an edge in Science and Mathematics subjects too!
The best way to develop creativity skills? Storytelling. There are many ways you can use storytelling to improve your child's creative thinking skills. It includes reading books with them or telling stories from their lives using games like Pictionary where they need to guess what other people are drawing.
MakeShift focuses on developing creative thinking skills in children through various activities and group workshops on ‘Storyboarding’, ‘Creative Writing’ and ‘Storytelling Skills’ that may be of interest if you want your child to excel at school or art projects outside of class time.
If any of this sounds interesting, feel free to contact us today over here - we would love to hear from you!