“Creativity is putting your imagination to work, and it’s produced the most extraordinary results in human culture.” Sir Ken Robinson.

Sir Ken Robinson was passionate about nurturing creativity. So many of his words resonate with me, and others like me, who believe it is important to foster creative minds. So much so that I am going to include some of his quotes in this piece. I hope it helps get across why it is important to nurture your child’s creativity – why it is more important than ever in our digital and AI world.

Let’s first of all, let’s think about what creativity is. As Sir Ken said, it is about using your imagination – about problem solving, coming up with ideas, working with them, ordering your thoughts so that you can write them down and work through the problem logically. These are all aspects that creativity fosters. The crucial point here is the willingness to have a go. That, and accepting you might not get it right first time. Your first idea is not always the best one. Brainstorming, and thinking creatively and critically can lead to better, more developed ideas.

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Sir Ken Robinson.

When we think of creativity, we think of English, as in creative writing, or we think of the arts. However, the act of thinking creatively filters into every aspect of life. The great philosophers, scientists and inventors of our time were creative minded people.

“You can be creative in anything – in math, science, engineering, philosophy – as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” Sir Ken Robinson.

Without creative thinking, we are unable to veer from what we know. We now live in a world where we are no longer encouraged to think for ourselves. Anything we don’t know we Google, and AI, though marketed as a tool to help save time, does all of our thinking for us. As I write this article, I am adding and deleting, as well as rearranging my words so that I can order my thoughts in the most logical way. I’m thinking about how I can best get my point across. AI could do all this for me, but I don’t want to lose that ability. I’d like to use my brain and let it work things out for itself.

Authors have written for years about humans being overtaken by robots. It was considered dystopian fiction but it is becoming less and less a far-fetched futuristic nightmare and closer to the truth. Am I exaggerating here? Or being over-the-top? Time spent scrolling, or looking at online content in short bursts, is massively affecting our ability to focus. Plus, we’re losing the art of thinking for ourselves because we’re surrounded by content that is doing that for us.

“You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them.” Sir Ken Robinson.

Being passionate about encouraging creativity is the reason why I started the Storymakers Writing Club almost ten years ago. As a writer, and an author, I know how important it is to be able to express yourself via the written word. Writing, for me, has always been an outlet. It’s that all-important creative pursuit that allows me to truly escape the everyday noise. When you get into a creative pursuit – really get into it – everything else around you fades. You can fall deep into your activity in a way that engages your brain differently from that of the short-burst doom scrolling that, for some, takes up hours (literally – if you look at your phone usage) every day.

“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement.” Sir Ken Robinson.

At the Storymakers Club, I provide regular creative writing groups for children (and for adults) as a way to encourage them to see creative writing as a pastime to be enjoyed, not endured. As Sir Ken said, “Creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy” and it is not merely a box to be ticked off. At my groups, I encourage the children to think; come up with ideas; to organise their thoughts into something that makes logical sense; to use their imaginations in the way they were intended. I often talk about exercising the creative brain in the way you would your physical self. The more you do something, the better at it you become.

“You can’t be a creative thinker if you’re not stimulating your mind, just as you can’t be an Olympic athlete if you don’t train regularly.” Sir Ken Robinson.

What I aim to achieve with my groups is to stimulate curiosity, to develop critical thinking skills and to let children run free with their imaginations.

“We are all born with extraordinary powers of imagination, intelligence, feeling, intuition, spirituality, and of physical and sensory awareness.” Ken Robinson.

To end on a final note with a quote from the late, great, Sir Ken: “To be creative you actually have to do something.”

In our ever-sedentary world, we are beginning to do less and less and we need to fight against that or we will have a generation of children growing into adults who are unable to problem solve.

If you are curious about the creative writing groups at the Storymakers Club, you can find out more on the website. Alternatively, to discuss how they can help nurture your child’s creativity, please feel free to get in touch.