In the modern era like today, the dynamics of change occur very quickly. The situation this year is much different from what happened last year, everything changes very quickly. Changing things quickly requires high adaptation and new forms of problems that arise. Of course this requires us to always be creative in solving problems that arise. Both related to technology, its application, habits and much more. Then what about children and adolescents?
Each generation has problems in its life and the ability to solve problems is of course different. As a simple example, in the past, purchase transactions always used banknotes and coins according to the currency prevailing in the area. However, nowadays the use of paper money and coins has been greatly reduced and replaced by a form of digital currency. So that the pattern of habits that occur is also different between the older generation who are used to carrying banknotes everywhere, and the younger generation who are accustomed to using cards for all transactions.
How do we as parents and educators who are in the old group adapt and even teach our children to adapt to existing conditions? The key is to teach children to think creatively. By teaching children to think creatively, we will be able to mentally shape children to continue to work on solving small problems in their lives according to existing conditions. How to? What is creative? Creative definition is a person’s ability to create something new, either in the form of ideas or real works that are relatively different from what already exists. Creativity is a person’s ability to solve problems that he or others face. So creativity is not only needed in the world of art alone, but also in everyday life. Often we are trapped in the perspective that only artistic people can be creative, even though we ourselves can also be creative in many ways. For example, mothers in cooking.
Then how to shape children to be creative? From an early age, we can start introducing children to simple problems according to their age. For example, for children aged 1-2 years learning to walk is a difficult problem to learn. Some children accomplish this by walking against a wall, raising their hands to maintain balance, or walking hand in hand with an older person. This is a simple form of children’s creativity to be able to walk. The more mature the child is, the more complex the level of problems faced will be. So it takes more creativity in the solution. Steps that can be used in shaping children to be creative are:
Teach and guide children to recognize the source of the problem itself
Looking for resources that are around to solve the problem
Mapping the problem in a simple diagram
Give examples of children in solving problems
Giving directions from afar for children
Provide a motivational boost for children
Give appreciation to children when solving problems
Evaluate other possibilities of the same problem at different times to stimulate children’s thinking skills
In addition, developing children’s ability to think creatively can also be done through various activities for children, both physical and online activities in various fields. Some fields that can be tried start from arts such as music, painting, dance, performing arts or literature such as learning a foreign language or writing, digital fields as well as hand skills and sports. Interaction with many people greatly influences children to get to know other characters as friends and teachers. This will build the child’s ability to adapt to various characters. Of course as parents we really want our children to have a creative attitude in various fields, for that we need a variety of activities that can be followed for children. At AME Art and Education there are various activities that children can choose as alternative activities in their spare time. We have programs that will help and inspire our students to be creative problem solvers, and make inventions for world developments in the future:
