A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to ... Where Are We Going, Again?
Monday, February 13th 2012 @ 6:55 PM
My kids' creativity never ceases to amaze me. Really -- I am not at all an artistically creative person. I am musical, I love reading, and my imagination is absolutely fired by a beautiful piece of art in any form. But as for myself, a stick figure is the best I can do when it comes to drawing; and my sense of spatial relations is best described as 'challenged.' My sense of creation comes from the turn of a phrase, and the pleasure of well-constructed (factual) prose.
My children get their creativitity and artistic talent from their dad. A surgeon, he has a tremendous sense of space, detail, and an eye for proportion. He is a gifted artist -- and through medical school as well as residency used drawings, diagrams, and cartoons he created to imprint information in his mind. He is willing and able to sit with our children and engage in artistic projects, get messy, and enjoy not only the product but the process.
Me? I can't wait to clean up.
But over time I've learned to let go a bit and give the kids more freedom to explore their creative side. I do have to limit the number of random egg cartons, shoe boxes, scraps of strings and paper, toilet paper rolls, and assorted other detritus to whatever fits in the large rubbermaid tote we've assigned to 'art materials.'
Over time, my children have created worlds for themselves. They all love their stuffed animals, little people, lego people, dolls, and plastic creatures/animals. They are the tableau -- the blank slate -- for the many scenery backdrops and costumes made from tissues and scraps. The other day the kids made a pirate world out of paper and ...dare I say...garbage? that had been lying in the recycle bin. They used up all my scotch tape, but really...after they put on the play they made up afterwards, how could I be mad?
We are not a no-TV family, but we limit the time spent on television, computer, and Wii pretty intensively. And after the first few minutes of complaints of 'boredom' the children disappear (usually into my eldest's room -- she's pretty much Julie The Cruise Director) and start their projects.
Now it's true, if allowed, my children would happily eschew any and all school work in favor of creating. Since at some point they do need to get some work done, there comes a time in the day when the creations are put away and the box is weeded out. But I really hope that memories they hold of their childhood contain their creations and the time spent together working on them.
A couple of weeks ago we took a road trip, and along the way the children told us a progressive story made up from one of the 'plays' they created over Shabbos with their creatures and projects. And a funny thing happened on the way to our destination -- I stopped worrying as much about the mess they had left and started thanking Hashem that they love to create, play, and be together.
