Creativity: Jess of the Avenues

Post 20 of HEIA: Creativity


Meet Jess from The Avenues. She's sharing her thoughts on creativity and child development today. 
Enjoy!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

My name is Jessica and I blog over at The Avenues, I write about the fun activities that my husband and I go on sometimes.   I am so happy that Hannah allowed me to do a guest post on this subject. I have many thoughts along this topic these days. Especially after going a whole summer without seeing any children outside playing riding bikes, running around the neighborhood or playing baseball in the streets. 


Creativity is the ability to create, I got that from Mr. Webster himself and I believe that thoroughly.  

We all can create something and so we all can be creative in our own ways But, (there’s always a but in there), we forget how to be creative as we get older and that is truly a sad predicament in our society. There is a lot that goes into this but I think the worst of it is because of the technology that we have.  So instead we have replaced children playing outside with staying in and watching television and playing video games or being on the computer. Don't get me wrong I love technology just as much as anyone else but we have abused it way too much. So much so that we have forgotten how to think through things and how to make difficult decisions for ourselves in our work and everyday lives.  We rely on our entertainment on a 30 min show or videos game. This has caused us to have a very limited attention span -- no wonder why our generation is so bored. We don't sit through a problem and dissect our thoughts oh no, we want that prize now! Like 5 minutes ago now.

And that my friend’s is what creativity is: thinking for ourselves and learning how to solve problems. Playing house as children was a great problem solving solutions when we were 4, 6, and 8. We played with other children and new situations arose and we learned to solve them in our developing minds.  So what does all of this have to do with children and me. Well I look forward to having children and I look forward to fostering those beautiful creative little minds of theirs. I have made my husband promise me that we will never have a playstation or any other game system in our house (well except for the wii, I can’t help that a little activity on a rainy day or cold winter day will be fine) and I plan on limiting television and computer time.  

So this leads me to how I will be creative with my future little ones and any other children that come through my home.  I myself am constantly looking up and finding all of these fun crafts and games and getting outside in my backyard to utilize it for great fun. I can see my backyard turned into the Atlantic Ocean and pirates approaching my ship or riding down the ridge for an attack and gathering up my warriors or possibly being in a far away place and meeting a princess that needs to feed her people. Or maybe my backyard turns into a great theater and I am going for the opening of a rave show. Oh yes I can see it and I look forward to seeing it happen. I also look forward to my dining room table to becoming my children’s art center. Oh there are so many different art projects for children to do at home and sitting next to them helping out sounds like the perfect afternoon to me. Its healthy for children to be active and playing outside and for their minds to be active that’s how they learn and grow. I also hope that as they get older that they will be even more creative in school, at home, with friends, college, missions, work, and their own home lives.


Creativity is a great tool that we have been given it helps us to find our talents, whether you are a great musician, painter, architect, teacher, mother, writer, businessman/women, whatever it is we do the creativity we posses helps foster our talents and brings it out in the rest of our lives. We should be pushing our chilren out the door to play outside and to find ways to not be bored for healthy play. So if you have your own children, nieces, nephews, cousins or whomever get out there with them and play. Get down on the floor and play with them. Turn off the TV build a fort in the living room tell some stories, read a book, pretend you are in a far away country and you are learning the ways of the natives. Have fun with it and maybe you'll find the creativity that you have been missing since you were a child.

    With love,

          Jess.

P.S.

Hannah here, make sure you enter my giveaway by Monday to win yourself a custom baby onesie!