Common ways adults discourage creativity

in children:

1. Surveillance — Hovering over kids, making

them feel that they're constantly being watched

while they are working . . . under constant

observation, the risk-taking, creative urge goes

underground and hides.

2. Evaluation — When we constantly make kids

worry about how they are doing, they ignore

satisfaction with their accomplishments.

3. Rewards — The excessive use of prizes . . .

deprives a child of the in trinsic pleasure of

creative activity.

4. Competition — Putting kids in a win-lose

situation, where only one person can come

out on top . . . negates the process [that]

children progress at their own rates.

5. Over-control — Constantly telling kid

how to do things . . . often leaves children

feeling like their originality is a mistake

and any exploration a waste of time.

6. Restricting choice — Telling children

which activities they should engage in

instead of letting them follow where their

curiosity and passion lead . . . again

restricts active exploration and

experimentation that might lead to

creative discovery and production.

7. Pressure — Establishing grandiose

expectations for a child's performance . . .

often ends up instilling aversion for a

subject or activity. . . . Unreasonably high

expectations often pressure children to

perform and conform within strictly

prescribed guidelines, and, again, deter

experimentation, exploration, and innovation.

Grandiose expectations are often beyond

children's developmental capabilities.

[In The Creative Spirit (Plume, 1993), a book

based on a PBS series on creativity, authors

Daniel Goleman, Paul Kaufman and Michael Ray]