How to encourage conscious creativity

One challenge we face today is to ensure that we lead a sustainable life. It is imperative to bring my kids into that space and teach them about making eco-friendly choices. While I don’t believe in introducing complex issues at an early age, I instead come up with creative ways to appreciate nature and have an optimistic, problem solving and imaginative mind-set. Here are some of them.

Remember the importance of playtime

There are many studies pointing out that parents are overwhelming their kids with too much to do, repetitive directions and control, which means children have no time to play freely. The lack of free play affects emotional development, leading to the rise of anxiety, depression, and problems of attention and self-control. Knowing this we tend to ‘do’ little with our kids. At this stage (they are two and four), we barely go to groups, attend sport activities or music classes, but instead spend time at home, inside or outside the house, where our kids play. We have a ‘less is more’ toy policy and rotate them so some are sitting in the attic, waiting, while the others are in use. Knowing how important free play is, we encourage our kids to play without any directions from us, by simply just being in the same room as them and not getting involved in their games unless they want us to. Raising conscious kids, for us, means letting them learn through play how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control and also handle their emotions, including anger and fear.