“ALL CHILDREN ARE ARTISTS. THE PROBLEM IS HOW TO REMAIN AN ARTIST ONCE HE GROWS UP.”

— PABLO PICASSO

We start with a very important skill that our children MUST have if they are to survive in the world of the future – Creativity.

Why is Creativity Important?

For our well-being – Creativity is very important for a child’s mental and physical well-being. In this article, researchers have stated that creativity improves health and decreases the risk of mortality. The article states “openness, which measures cognitive flexibility and the willingness to entertain novel ideas, has emerged as a lifelong protective factor. The linchpin seems to be the creativity associated with the personality trait—creative thinking reduces stress and keeps the brain healthy.”

For a better preparedness for future – It is widely believed that as our children go into the workforce, the type of jobs will be very different. With the increase in AI, a large number of routine jobs will be done by machines and computers. The skill that will never go out of focus will be creativity. A McKinsey report states “Demand for higher cognitive skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, decision making, and complex information processing, will grow through 2030”. As such, this is one skill which unfortunately doesn’t get too much attention in the school curriculum but which will mark the difference between a successful and unsuccessful person in the future.

For increased confidence – The more creative a person, the better able he/she is to solve a problem, to find solutions even in the face of failure. Creative people are known to be less prone to giving up after failing. They can usually come up with an alternative solution to achieve what they want to.

In our next few posts we will talk about various suggestions and ideas of what we can do to impart this extremely important skill to our children.