Children's creativity is decreasing in the US and in Europe?

(Photo: Psychology Today)

 

Americans prize themselves, and rightly so, for being great innovators, capable of figuring out new ways of doing things and new things to do.

Quoting from Peter Gray of Psychology Today:

"Perhaps this derives from our frontier beginnings, or from our unique form of democracy with its emphasis on individual freedom and respect for nonconformity. In the business world as well as in academia and the arts and elsewhere, creativity is our number one asset".

It seems things are changing for the worse. According to new reasearch, "the scores on these tests [Torrance tests of creative thinking apllied to schoolchildren] at all grade levels began to decline somewhere between 1984 and 1990 and have continued to decline ever since".

The explanation? Maybe the following, according to Peter Gray: "more and more we are subjecting children to an educational system that assumes one right answer to every question and one correct solution to every problem, a system that punishes children (and their teachers too) for daring to try different routes. We are also (...) increasingly depriving children of free time outside of school to play, explore, be bored, overcome boredom, fail, overcome failure—that is, to do all that they must do in order to develop their full creative potential".

Are we over-protecting our children and getting the results of this? I'm quite sure this is not a problem exclusive to Americans. Although I don't know of any research in Europe, I believe conclusions would point in the same direction.

If the subject interests you, you may want to have a look at the following link in Psychology Today:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201209/children-s-freedom-has-declined-so-has-their-creativity?utm_source=swissmiss&utm_campaign=cd24a79f4c-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2660ad4d17-cd24a79f4c-393315113

 

WEIRD TOYS

An American company produces toys based on child drawings. You can see their products here:

http://www.childsown.com/

A bit upsetting, isn'it? What's left of that space that Winnicott called the "transitional space" that is neither fantasy nor reality?

Lowering kids´ academic pressure

The American Psychological Association (APA) published an interesting research about the effect of academic pressure on kids´school performances. It turns out that lowering the pressure, by telling them learning can be difficult and failures are normal, will raise their self-esteem, lower their fear of failure and improve their school results.

Read more here: http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/03/academic-pressure.aspx

Who are the happiest kids of the Western world?

The recent World Health Organisation (WHO) study called 'Health Behaviour in School-aged Children' shows that Dutch children are the happiest in the Western world (39 countries: Europe, Canada and the US). Other happy kids are living in Armenia, Finland and Iceland. Children in Turkey, Poland, Ukraine and Romania feel least happy. Read more here: http://www.hbsc.org/news/index.aspx?ni=1064.

WHY DO WE LOOSE CREATIVITY?

Picasso once famously said that every child is an artist. This article in BigThink explores the reasons you loose creativity when you grow up.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/killing-creativity-why-kids-draw-pictures-of-monsters-and-adults-dont?page=2

Children Emotional Problems

Like adults children have many different ways to react to their emotional problems. Nevertheless, unlike adults they are unable to tell us they have an emotional problem and need help.

It is our work as responsible and loving adults to be alert to their signals and help them understand their needs providing, if necessary, the specialized and technical help available in the society.

Many times we tend to rapidly criticize and think that this or that child has no manners, knows no rules and respects no one when so many times those are the only ways that small person has learned to express her or his difficulties and or emotional problems.