To begin with, what is creativity?
It can be understood as a way of thinking, which develops when facing an obstacle. It is important to see how your child creates a solution to said problem, it must have special characteristics, such as fluency, flexibility, originality and independence. (Guilford, cited by Perdomo-Gonzales, 2014)
But what is fluency?
Fluency is the amount of ideas and solutions that your child gives to the problem in a given time. The more ideas that come into your head, the more fluid you are.
And what is then, flexibility and originality?
Flexibility is the way your baby adapts to the obstacle. If this requires an unusual solution, or redefine your already proposed solutions to overcome the obstacle. Originality, on the other hand, determines that the solution is unusual, new, and unrepeatable.
And finally, independence, is how your child manages to free himself from that problem or obstacle that has arisen.
What can I do to stimulate my baby in the creative realm, and what could frustrate or slow down my baby's creativity?
Independence plays a major role as your baby grows. Although you have to take care of them so that nothing bad happens to them, allowing them to know the environment that surrounds them will allow them to encounter problems and obstacles and that is what will begin to encourage them to look for different options. Take care of your baby, but don't over-protect him for no reason.
The implementation of games or toys that allow the development of fine motor skills. And learning, how to know and distinguish shapes and colors. (Paint, color, etc.)
Imitation play, role play or acting will always allow your child the freedom to explore different situations and promote open thinking and the avoidance of stereotypes.
Allowing fantasy is essential. It is completely normal for your child to invent and create new scenarios or stories.
Fantasy is very different from lying and you must respect your baby's perception of things. Over time, the child will understand how reality can dismantle his fantasies, and he will constantly ask questions that must be explained in order for him to better understand the world around him.
Finally, the stimulation processes in the creative field can be short or long depending on the time and place.
There are institutions that dedicate at least an hour in extracurricular hours with games that achieve creative development.
It is also important to identify what preferences your baby has, it is possible that you will not see results in a single activity or field, we recommend that you try different options.
