Parenting In Focus: Creativity by squeezing and rolling

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 15, 2024

One way to increase your child’s sense of creativity is to encourage her to use her senses and motor skills. Temperature, texture, smell and sight are all ways to encourage her to try new things that might bring out her creativity.

When she molds material, it is great for her motor skill and muscle development.

When you get her out the playdough for her to use, she won’t be sure what she will do with it. She will love it when you use words like squash, stamp, squeeze, squish, scrunch, smash and slam when you describe what she can do with playdough. Each of these words might give her another idea of a way to play.

Here are some ways you can help:

• Use some essential oils with interesting smells such as peppermint or cinnamon. Just add a little to the playdough and it will have a different and good smell to it.

• Press the playdough into different shapes using cookie cutters, car or truck trails, shells and anything else you can think of. Children’s play can also be a way to test parents’ creativity.

• Take the playdough outside and create a new word with plastic farm animals, dinosaurs, flowers, and rocks from your yard. Use tinfoil for a make-believe pond.

• Make marbled playdough. Begin by making plain playdough and then give it to her with some paint powder to mix in. Be sure to let her do the mixing of the powder.

• Color half the dough and leave the other half plain. Twist and roll them together.

• Make a batch and divide it into three parts. Color each a primary color then let her see what happens to the colors as she combines them.

• Make pretend cookies, treats and pizza.

• Pretend to bake in a cold oven for a few minutes but remember to set a timer.

More lessons

There are many lessons playing with playdough. You will open up a big world for her that she may not have known before today.

Besides being fun, play like this helps your child be curious, creative, and smart. It helps her build trusting relationships with you and others, gives her confidence, encourages her to explore and helps her learn how to connect to others and the world around her.

Let her discover shapes in her world by asking her how many circles she can find in the kitchen, put on a puppet show, or make some instruments with her many colors of playdough.

Quality time

Special times like this playdough time is quality time with your child. The key is to be present and focus your attention entirely on your interaction with them. You may be surprised how much her behavior improves just when you spend more quality time together.

Before you spend time ever disciplining your child, focus on quality time with her. It will have a far bigger impact.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which published newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents.