Creative writing is undoubtedly one of the best ways to work your mind. But, when it comes to children, this habit has incredible benefits.
As we live in the days of instant messaging, either via smartphone apps or computers, creative writing will help your children in many aspects.
The benefits of creativity for children
Creativity is a type of rational thinking. Also called divergent thinking, creativity forms complex children. A creative child is a divergent thinker. Unlike others, for whom there is only one fixed solution, the creative man finds multiple solutions and possibilities to a specific problem.
Guide your child to creative activities, such as creative writing, challenge them to find solutions, help them look at the difficulties differently, realize that a problem has multiple possibilities to solve — and that they are all there.
A person who did not take care of his or her creativity is rigid, living in a permanent blockage. Maybe you know people who never see the way out of a problem, who do not see the beauty in anything around us, or who do not know how to enjoy simple things. Focus only on immediate results and the expectations of others.
A child guided and supported to be creative will become a free adult, with vision, empathy, able to value the work of others, and see beyond appearances. Every parent wants a successful, fulfilled child, who will become a happy adult, open to changes, and with a broad vision of things.
The creative writing benefits that will help your children
The creative child will always be original, will look for the best ideas, the most innovative solutions, will not be tempted to copy the style of others, nor will he be easily influenced, manipulated, or assimilated by inappropriate environments.
Guide your child to creativity, and you will be a parent who will be proud of an involved adult who always has the desire to improve and discover the self and the best solutions.
If math isn’t your child’s strength, don’t worry. Maybe the teaching method didn’t reach him. Look for variations, try fun math, creative math, or so on. All the essential information must contact the child in the right way.
Also, do not force your children. This is what parents need to understand — a creative child does not mean a child who will spend his whole life building paper boats, but a child who will become a smart adult with practical solutions at hand.
Eliminates the constraints of the “Teaching to test” model
In schools, the modern “teaching to test” model is the new standard. That means teachers teach specific lessons to students and will test their understanding of those particular items afterward. Some of the parents and teachers even complained that this standardized model is not offering enough time to creativity, especially for creative writing.
Well, one of the best creative writing benefits is that creative writing will eliminate the constraints of the new standardized testing system. Creative writing will give children out-of-the-box thinking, helping them evolve their skills much faster.
Creative writing will help kids communicate better
Nowadays, in the age of emojis that express our immediate emotions or feelings, we tend to communicate in increasingly fewer words. Children are the most affected group by the new trends in instant communication.
Accordingly, creative writing will help children express their thought, emotions, feelings more effectively by using words. Even more, it will boost kids’ communication skills, helping them later in their lives.
Kids who practice creative writing do better in exact sciences
We live in an era when people tend to focus on coding and other technology-related jobs. Parents also tend to direct their kids towards mathematical sciences that will eventually help them access the before-mentioned kinds of jobs.
It might come as a surprise for some parents, but creative writing helps children develop skills for exact sciences. The most significant aptitude that children who practice creative writing will develop is logical thinking. The brain will start developing rational functions that will help kids develop the required skills for exact sciences.
Helps children cope with stress and trauma better
During childhood, many children experience traumatic events, and even more kids experience stress due to various situations. Whereas therapy is a helpful solution in advanced cases, creative writing, for its part, is an excellent way for kids to learn how to process stress and trauma.
Moreover, writing is a form of therapy. Several studies concluded that people who hold a diary where they write all the events in their lives, including those traumatic events, cope better with stress and trauma.
Creative writing boosts reading skills
Writing and reading are intertwined. On many occasions, children are not good at both writing and reading. But, for instance, if your kid is good at writing, you should promote this habit for him or her. Creative writing will force your child to write and read the text.
Accordingly, by writing, children can also get better at reading. According to experts, however, that’s not always working the other way too. So, reading will only improve your kids’ vocabulary but not their creative writing abilities.
Why are you writing?
Before you start writing, it’s good to think about what you mean by this story. Why is it important to you? Maybe it contains a question that you are looking for an answer to that has bothered you for a while, and you would like to “hand it over” to the right characters that have different solutions in a context imagined by you.
That does not mean that the story must come up with a solution. Moral writings are also valid, but it’s even more interesting if the story makes you think, instead of closing your horizons. When you don’t know why you’re writing the story, just an anecdote might come out, something that is nothing more than facts written on a piece of paper, something that doesn’t go too deep. In any case, it is a good exercise and writing without a specific purpose.
How do you start the story?
You will be tempted to write in the first sentence when and where the action takes place, and it is normal, that’s what people think: from the big picture to the picture frame. But if you’re writing a story that needs to be read to the end, it’s an excellent idea to intrigue the reader right from the start. You can write a sentence that will make him think and want to read on.
Make the reader curious. Or at least give him a hint about the atmosphere of the story: to “smell” from the beginning if it’s a fantastic story or a love story or maybe a humorous one. Sure, that means knowing what kind of story you’re writing.
What kind of people are the characters in the story?
There are a lot of ways to outline your characters. And thanks to them, our story may or may not work. The characters play a significant role in any writing. You can cheat and make your best friend the main character, and then you would have the advantage of knowing him, you know who you’re writing about.
But there is also a downside: you may not realize what is essential to write about it and what is not, about what matters in the story and what is useless information.
If you invent a character, if you draw it from scratch, it would be good to make a clear picture of him, to “see” him with the eyes of the mind. Otherwise, he will be a “cardboard” character, meaning he will not be credible.
Some writers invent characters to “trick” readers: the reader will see the character so clearly that they may think he really existed! In order to get to know your characters, you have to answer some questions: how old are they, what do they like to do in their free time, what principles do they have (what do they think), how would they react in certain situations, and so on.
You need to know your characters in depth. All the characters in the story will have your voice, the author’s voice.
How will the story unfold?
Follow the thread of the story — see what happens. And it changes if you feel that something is wrong: things that bother your hearing (repetitions, pompous words), grammatical mistakes, missing letters, extra spaces, excessive punctuation, logic mistakes — for example, contradictions.
How do you get to the best version of the story?
Reread the text at least three times. Even great writers don’t come out on top. They reread and repair everything that stops the story from its normal course. Then, it is good to leave the text for a while and, when you read it again, to cut from it or add new elements.
Conclusion
In short, creative writing comes with several benefits for children. From learning more than the education system offers to them to writing their own stories and boosting their logical thinking and reading skills, writing is excellent for kids.
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