Post by katieblock on Aug 7, 2011 23:01:34 GMT -5
When I was younger I was I was an abundance of creativity. I ran through my yard pretending I was Cho Chang from Harry Potter and the girl across the street was Hermione Granger, I played a game I called "Spirit and Rain" based after the movie "Spirit", and once my little brother was old enough to play too, we pretended we were in a video game and we had to go through different levels. Sadly, as I got older, I didn't want to run through the yard playing games and I began to tell my brother I couldn't play outside anymore. My imagination became dull and I thought that was because I was just "too old" to act crazy and make a fool out of myself, but then I began to notice my brother.
My brother's always been a wild one. He's absolutely nuts, but Hayden has a problem. He won't play by himself. He constantly has to have someone playing with him. Whenever he asks my parents to play they state, "When your sister was little she would play in her room by herself and amuse herself for hours. Even when she was a baby she would wake up in the morning and blow raspberries and giggle at herself." So before reading this article I wondered if Hayden was the only child in the world that didn't use his imagination and now that I know the creativity levels in children are dropping I begin to wonder why.
So why were there kids like me and then kids now like Hayden? I think the contrast in creativity levels depends on the generations. Through the generations we’ve discovered tons of new technology and created many new inventions that has kept the world occupied. When I was little we didn't have these crazy gaming devices and computers weren't very dominant. Now we have Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, and tons of games online. Hayden has played virtual games ever since he could read, so maybe his imagination was blocked. He was so busy playing games with the computer (referring to computer players) he grew into this mindset that he needed someone to play with him. The computers and gaming devices created the make believe worlds for him, so he subconsciously forgot how to use his imagination.
I believe the creativity depends on the technology of the generation and how parents monitor how long their children use computers and gaming devices. I'm not blaming my parents for Hayden's lack of imagination, but I'm saying that maybe it's just inevitable for the time period. Maybe there isn’t anything we can do about the creativity levels in kids, but I highly doubt that. I think if every parent, schoolteacher, coach, sibling, Aunts, Uncles, EVERYONE worked together to spark creativity and imagination that we could begin to raise our CQ levels again. We have to enforce art, reading, writing, and creating our own little worlds. We have to encourage instead of making fun and we have to be interested in what the children of our world have to say. This is a lot for everyone to do, but I believe it can be accomplished with much effort.
My brother's always been a wild one. He's absolutely nuts, but Hayden has a problem. He won't play by himself. He constantly has to have someone playing with him. Whenever he asks my parents to play they state, "When your sister was little she would play in her room by herself and amuse herself for hours. Even when she was a baby she would wake up in the morning and blow raspberries and giggle at herself." So before reading this article I wondered if Hayden was the only child in the world that didn't use his imagination and now that I know the creativity levels in children are dropping I begin to wonder why.
So why were there kids like me and then kids now like Hayden? I think the contrast in creativity levels depends on the generations. Through the generations we’ve discovered tons of new technology and created many new inventions that has kept the world occupied. When I was little we didn't have these crazy gaming devices and computers weren't very dominant. Now we have Xbox, PlayStation, Wii, and tons of games online. Hayden has played virtual games ever since he could read, so maybe his imagination was blocked. He was so busy playing games with the computer (referring to computer players) he grew into this mindset that he needed someone to play with him. The computers and gaming devices created the make believe worlds for him, so he subconsciously forgot how to use his imagination.
I believe the creativity depends on the technology of the generation and how parents monitor how long their children use computers and gaming devices. I'm not blaming my parents for Hayden's lack of imagination, but I'm saying that maybe it's just inevitable for the time period. Maybe there isn’t anything we can do about the creativity levels in kids, but I highly doubt that. I think if every parent, schoolteacher, coach, sibling, Aunts, Uncles, EVERYONE worked together to spark creativity and imagination that we could begin to raise our CQ levels again. We have to enforce art, reading, writing, and creating our own little worlds. We have to encourage instead of making fun and we have to be interested in what the children of our world have to say. This is a lot for everyone to do, but I believe it can be accomplished with much effort.