These days creativity for kids is in. It used to be that many teachers and parents didn’t care much about creativity. Math and science and left brain subjects were the subjects that were concentrated on to the exclusion of more creative right brain activities. A new book came out called “A Whole New Mind” that explained how important creativity is today in order to be able to get a good job. All of the left brain activities that we have been training our kids for are being taken by outsourcers that can charge a fraction of our cost, due to their lower cost of living. A job that an American is making $75,000 can be outsourced to a third world country for a quarter of that salary for the same exact job. It is no wonder that people have started looking more towards developing kids creativity than keeping them stuck in left brain activities.

So the race to get our kids creative is on. I’m not just talking about creative valentines craft ideas but, creativity that seeps into every area of life. In order to do this you first how to know how creative your own child is. Then you will know how hard you will have to work to get him to be creative. One of the first things to look for in your child is do they like to try out new ideas and new ways of doing things. If they do then there probably is that creative spark in them. Kids that have no creativity tend to just follow directions and not look for innovation.

Another way to tell if your child is creative is to see what they do with materials. Do they manipulate them and try to transform them or do they just try to figure out what the material was made to do. Children that like to take things apart and put them back together again are for the most part creative even sometimes it may just mean that they have a real mechanical mind and love to see how things work. The truth is that to be a good mechanical technician you need some creativity as well. The last two things that will tell you if your child is creative is do they fantasize and imagine new possibilities and do they try to solve problems and figure things out. If your child has even a few of these characteristics, then you can be pretty sure that they have the creative gene.