By CHERRY NORTON
Parents who spend a lot of time encouraging their children while they are playing are unwittingly damaging their creativity.
A study presented at the American Psychological Society conference shows that children are more creative when parents are not always encouraging them.
The researchers said that a lot of parental involvement, previously seen as beneficial, suppressed creativity because it turned play into a structured activity, leaving the child feeling anxious to perform well.
Dale Grubb, of Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, a co-author of the study, said: "The adage that parents want to encourage kids to colour between the lines appears to be true.
"Parents need to allow their kids to feel free to experiment if they want their children to grow up into creative and original adults. If parents get involved too much, the child feels they are being evaluated and judged.
"While the demand on creative individuals continues to increase, teachers and parents are looking at ways to foster creativity and originality in the next generation.
"This research shows that although parents need to encourage and support their children, there are times they should just allow them to get on with it."
Researchers videoed parents and their children aged 3 or 4 as they played with foam shapes. The creativity of parent and child was tested. The children made shapes such as swords, crowns and dinosaurs, but some showed more originality. One boy made a swimming pool using all the shapes and furniture, while others made imaginary creatures.
Parent-child interaction was coded by researchers assessing how much they spoke to each other, voice tone, whether comments were negative or positive, and how much the parent tried to control what the child did. The researchers expected parents who interacted with their children would have more creative offspring, but the findings show the opposite.
- INDEPENDENT
Helping children to play can stunt their creativity
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