Thursday, July 10, 2008

Your Creative Child (and her Learning Style)

Jessica is a lovely girl with an active imagination. Her drawings are superb and she has a gift of story telling. However, she needs to work on paying attention in class and keeping to the task at hand, as she’s easily distracted and hardly ever finishes her work.

Does your son or daughter’s school report card read something like that? Then you have a creative child on your hands.

Creative children typically have a highly holistic learning style, characterised by the following:
· thinking outside the box
· daydreaming
· ability to do several things at once
· lack of concern for details in favour of the big idea
· trouble with time limits and deadlines.

(To analyse your child’s learning style, please have a look at http://www.creativelearningcentre.com/Products/Learning-Style-Analysis/.)

Because most schools are geared towards children whose learning style is analytic (and thus quite the reverse of a holistic style), your creative child might struggle to flourish in the traditional education system. If not properly stimulated and rewarded, a creative child might lose interest in schoolwork and, in time, become withdrawn or rebellious.

Does your child’s learning style stand in the way of academic success? Here’s how you can help.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What I struggle with Yvonne. Is being the creative mom, a home schooling mom at that.

That student was me, still is me. I get bored easily, but find creative way to amuse myself.

My three children all have different learning styles.

One seems to be creative as well. He enjoys drawing and reading; very social, loves to be center of attention. But lacks focus and direction. Hmmm where did he get that from?

Im self taught in most things that I do. Web Design, graphic design, creative stuff. But I worry that I have passed this on to my son.

Any advice for the creative parent, that finds it difficult to pressure creative kids into doing things they really dont want to do, and see no purpose in doing ?

Well for me, I just make sure that the important things are taught in a creative way. Most stems from conversation, trips, etc.

What If's and than we work on them together.

It is very difficult to encourage your children to do something, that you yourself think is very boring as well.

Learn more about me, my kids and our homeschool terrors at http://www.aishaladon.com

Aisha is an Independent Education Adviser