If you have kids you know that the main goal in their young lives is to be entertained. Kids love to watch TV and movies, surf the Internet and chat with friends, and play games, which they would happily do all night long if you didn’t stop them. The thing is, all of these entertainments are mostly passive. Your kids might need to do a little bit of strategic thinking whilst they slay digital monsters, and at least when they are sending messages to their friends they are doing some writing, albeit not standard English, AMIRITE? What you may find troubling is these pastimes don’t engage much, if any, of your child’s creativity, and there is nothing to show for the effort they put into them. Yes, they are stimulated, but there won’t be any tangible evidence of their activities to look back upon later, all they will have are fleeting memories of glowing screens and moving pixels.
So, what can a parent do if they see their kids drifting away into the virtual world? The answer is to get busy right now and engage them in a shared creative project! You need to get out the paints and the clay, and any other physical medium you can think of, and start creating some memories that will last. To start with, let’s put some of that modern technology to use and make some custom stickers! I have vivid memories from my own childhood of passionately collecting stickers and applying them wherever I thought they might look good, sometimes to my own mother’s chagrin- “Why is there a monster driving a hot rod on my antique coffee table?”
The very thought of being able to make my own stickers excites me, and it’s an enthusiasm I can share with the kids! If your offspring have a knack for drawing and painting use their work as the base, and if that’s not their thing let them choose some art they like from the internet, then send them to the online print shop and have them whip up a bunch of custom stickers! It’s a lot of fun, and your kids can delight in giving them away to friends, decorating their possessions, or sticking them all over your antique furniture (we will not be held liable for unwanted sticker spamming!).
Along those lines, another new artistic technology is creating custom items made from vinyl. You can make heavy-duty stickers for outdoor use, such as custom bumper stickers for the car, welcome mats with humorous phrases (“Welcome to Our Mess!”), window clings to warn the birds away, and more, so get creating!
Creativity is essential for children to develop, which is why the US government highlights the importance of developing creativity in the classroom.