Creating a Creative Child

With my limited experience as a mother (5 years), and some good advice from Mr. Lee and others (I will mention my friend Mr. Lee a lot because he has really good ideas about pedagogy), I can say that creating a creative child is not difficult. It may be that first child temperament that makes parenting so easy or it may be simply that a curious child is a creative child. The difficulty is extending this creativity to the teen years. Some things I have done that are productive are:

1. Get them working with their hands. Problem solving is involved in an art project that has gone bad that you want to make right. Also building things such as woodwork and following directions. The question is that when something goes wrong, can the child work out how to fix it.
2. Answer questions. This one is hard for me especially after a long day. Any question a child has asked must be answered even if it is done at a later time. It is even better if you can't answer the question and you have to look it up. The child then gets comfortable with the resources that are needed to learn. They may not groan like I did whenever my mother said 'go look it up.'
3. Be a young child yourself. If I see something in nature that I wonder about, I say it out loud and try to find the answer.
4. Make these things seem like natural everyday occurrences.