Raising the Creative Child – Part 1

Over my long career as a voice teacher, I have trained many young people that have gone on to huge success in the entertainment industry.  In this three part series I will share some insights for the creative child and the parents raising them.

The Normal, The Creative, and the Neurotic

When I was working with a psychologist, he said something profound to me, “You know Randy, there are three types of people in the world: the normal, the creative, and the neurotic.”

• A normal person takes everything at face value and is fine with it.
• A creative person sees through it all and has no concern for the normal. They lead creative, fulfilling lives.
• The neurotic sees through it like the creative, but is concerned about fitting in with normal. They are miserable.

Is that what you want your child to be; neurotic?

Avoiding the pitfalls of raising a creative child

Since we’ve identified that creative children are intrinsically different, why do parents fail at raising them? There are many reasons. One of the main ones is trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

The more you try to force that square peg into a round hole, the more the child becomes aware they are a square peg. This diminishes self worth (not self esteem, which we will discuss). Self worth is inherent. We all have it. To make your child into something they truly are not, starts diminishing it and setting up later behavioral issues, which creative children are prone to if not given the proper nurturing and guidance. Let them be, and realize their childhood and education and conclusions will most likely not lead them to work in corporate America, etc. Even if they do end up there, with their intrinsic personality fully realized, they will then be the leaders and innovators. There are plenty of places to read about the differences between self worth and self esteem. Besides, if you are not really good at your pursuit, do you really have self esteem? Outside recognition comes from being really good at something, not being told you are just because you want to be.

This is part of the reason the education, discussions, exposure to subjects, etc., and avoidance of self-esteem based training are so important.

The next part of this series will focus on the elements parents should focus to avoid common mistakes.