Encourage creativity

“Grandma far, far away, can you get me some ribbon? Black, like Paige’s? I want to make a necklace,” Emma’s small voice said over the telephone. “It has to be just like Paige’s. OK? Love you. Bye.” Then she was gone.
I’ll give her one thing. The child does get to the point. For someone who will chatter for hours in person, she is not much for talking on the phone.
Paige is Emma’s stepsister. She is a year and a half older than Emma. Emma idolizes her. Apparently Paige has a choker necklace made of black ribbon. Emma wants to make one for herself.
Therefore I will be in search of black ribbon today. I am told that she already has baubles to add to the future necklace. I hope that I somehow acquire the correct shade and width of black ribbon. It is too bad she didn’t want white ribbon. We have a wedding to go to Saturday and I’m sure that we will have ribbon left over from wrapping the present we bought for the bride and groom.
This child enjoys making things. She has an imagination as creative as any five year old. I try to foster her creativity by providing her with as many supplies as I can. At any given time I have a collection of odds and ends to send to her.
The last time she made a request it was for buttons. She wanted to make sock puppets. I always knew that someday there would be a use for all the buttons I had saved. I provided the buttons but I don’t know if she ever did make her sock puppets.
I think she gets this creativity from her great-grandmother. She has met her great-grandmother only once. I am hoping that she will visit her many more times in years to come. Anyway, one of my mom’s favorite sayings is, “You can make that.”
My brothers and I have spent our whole lives listening to that phrase. Mom will never understand that sometimes we don’t want to make it ourselves. Now my granddaughter loves making things. I am surrounded!
As much as I protest against making things myself, what I do for relaxation involves making stuff. Granted, except for food, the stuff I make is usually useless. My brother makes replicas of contraptions he finds on the internet. Who knows if grandsons Jacob and Nicky will follow in the family tradition? I should probably start collecting junk just in case.
In reusing crafting supplies, we are practicing recycling. Old buttons become eyes for sock puppets. Leftover ribbon adorns a child’s necklace. Things that would ordinarily end up in the landfill are given new life.
By fostering creativity in a child, we are nurturing future inventors. Emma may not invent the next great technological or medical breakthrough. Then again, she might. She is at the stage in her life when all the possibilities are still there.
By allowing her the freedom to make things herself, we are telling her that she is a capable person; that what she thinks matters. Isn’t that what we all want — to know that we matter?
We give her the opportunity to make her own choices as a way of showing her how important she is to us. All children should be so lucky.
Children are our future. They should be protected and cherished. Emma has many people who love her and at least one grandmother who is willing to indulge her love of making things.
She has a stepsister to look up to and a necklace to make if I can find some black ribbon for her.[[In-content Ad]]