Sharing Creative Time with Family

Families have a lot going on. Children have expectations with school, parents work, there are sport activities and constant fires that need to be put, not to mention the everyday household chores. While all these things are important, allowing family creative time where children and adults can encourage creative thinking and play creates meaningful connections, self-confidence, and self-acceptance. By giving your family this gift, you will embrace new ways to relax, play and grow together.

I spent this past weekend in creative play with my big, amazing family on my sister’s farm. Everyone, and I mean every single person, took part in dressing up in home crafted costumes, carving pumpkins, playing games, contributing ideas and creating food to feed sixty. We all slipped into the dark woods for a late-night zombie walk complete with a fortune teller and mad science lab. We took part in mandatory werewolf vaccines and watched eyeballs rolls in dry ice concoctions. We climbed through a witch’s broom closet, wrapped ourselves like a mummy and crawled through spider webs tangles. These activities brought the whole family together fun, allowed for problem-solving (how are we going to set up this game in the woods for sixty people?), boosted self-confidence (how did you make that amazing cake or costume?) and made life a little more interesting and pleasurable.

While you don’t have to set up a complete weekend of creating, you can do simple things to bring the family together. Encouraging creative hobbies is a great way for a family to find something they enjoy together. Try out various activities like knitting, coloring, dancing, or drawing together. Allow room for imagination through less organized art activities such as finding random things you might consider trash and see what happens they are painted and glued. Encourage exploration and experimentation instead of results and products. Encourage divergent thinking by asking more questions and look for more than one solution to a problem.

Creating together is an amazing way to connect to your family and a perfect way to play and grow together.