How to develop a creative personality

The bitter truth is that geeks rarely become adult geniuses capable of changing the world. Consider, for example, the winners of the STS (Scientific Talent Search), America’s most prestigious award that recognizes gifted students. During the first 52 years of its existence (from 1942 to 1994), about two thousand child prodigies were selected as finalists, but only one percent of them subsequently connected their activities with the national academy of sciences. Eight people from the mentioned winners of the award received Nobel Prizes, but the remaining tens and hundreds of young geniuses, becoming adults, never realized their potential.

Pass the tests

• Are you good at raising children?

It was previously thought that gifted children lacked the social and emotional skills necessary for successful socialization. However, this explanation was considered insufficient, since less than a quarter of all geeks actually experience any social or emotional difficulties. The vast majority of them are well prepared and are just as successful at a cocktail party as they are at a spelling class.

What prevents geeks from becoming original and creative personalities? The fact is that gifted children strive to earn the approval of their parents and the admiration of teachers. For this, they can work hard and become, for example, chess champions, but the learning process does not give them an incentive to create something new. These guys are capable of playing great Mozart melodies, but rarely compose their own. They focus all their energy on consuming existing scientific knowledge without generating new ideas. Young talents prefer to conform to a long-standing routine, rather than reinvent the wheel. If a creative child appears in the class, then most likely he will not want to strictly fulfill all the requirements of the teacher, but will defend his own views.

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• Is your child a child prodigy?

Growing up, many geeks become experts in what they know and do best. And only a small part of gifted children eventually grows into innovators and creators. Most prefer not to go beyond their favorite activities, only there using their outstanding mental abilities. Children of genius make doctors who fight for the lives of patients without trying to fix the flaws of the medical system as a whole, or, for example, lawyers who protect clients from unfair accusations, but do not try to correct the laws themselves.

So what needs to be done to raise a child to be a creative person? In a recent study, experts compared several families with each other: with creative and ordinary children. As it turned out, the parents of “ordinary” children set at least five or six rules for them to follow in life: sleep on a schedule, a special daily routine. The educators of creative children offered them no more than one rule. Instead, parents encouraged their children to think for themselves by emphasizing moral values.

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• Creativity on the verge of insanity

There is something unique about the parents of babies themselves, from whom creative individuals grow: they pay special attention to developing their own “ethical code”. The older generation, of course, explains to the younger one that success and relevance are important elements of life, but at the same time encourages young geniuses to understand their own values ​​​​and discover their interests. All this creates good prerequisites for the development of a creative personality.

American psychologist Benjamin Bloom closely studied the features of the early development of famous musicians, artists, athletes and scientists. He managed to find out that their parents did not at all dream of a superstar career for their children, did not act as strict supervisors in the family, but, on the contrary, were sensitive to the internal motivation of their sons and daughters. When the kids showed interest in something, they were ready to get down to business with enthusiasm, their parents unconditionally supported them. For example, Mozart developed an interest in music before he started taking lessons, rather than the other way around, and jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams taught herself to play the piano on her own.

In his book Geniuses and Outsiders, Canadian journalist and sociologist Malcolm Gladwell formulated the so-called “rule of 10 thousand hours”¹. Based on a number of studies, Gladwell argued that geniuses are not born, but become the result of hard training. In his opinion, to achieve some outstanding result in most areas of activity, it is necessary to devote 10 thousand hours to practice and study. It is not very clear how the amount of time varies depending on the field of application of forces and the characteristics of a particular person, but this is not the main question that this theory poses to us. First, the more we practice, the more we become trapped in habitual ways of thinking and problem solving. An expert often cannot cope with the introduction of any innovations into practice, while for a beginner, whose mind is free from all sorts of clichés, such a task does not seem difficult. Secondly, it is the internal predisposition that arouses curiosity in a person and encourages him to practice the skill for 10 thousand hours or even more. It is the natural inclination towards something that also determines the enjoyment of the process of this training.

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• Ingenious madmen: brilliant in one thing, but insane in everything else

Experience shows that the success of creative self-realization depends on the breadth of interests, and not only on the depth of our knowledge and experience. Scientists who have received the Nobel Prize are 22 times more likely to become actors, dancers, or even illusionists than their “ungifted” peers, 12 times more likely to start writing poetry or novels, 7 times more likely to turn to arts and crafts, and 2 times more likely to start playing musical instruments or composing music. No one forces outstanding scientists to choose their creative hobby. It becomes a reflection of their curiosity. As Albert Einstein wrote, love is a better teacher than duty. Mom enrolled him in a music school at the age of five, dreaming that her son would learn to play the violin, but nothing came of this idea. The future physicist perceived the lessons as a boring duty, but one day he heard Mozart’s sonatas, which captivated him. “I took violin lessons from the age of 6 to 14, but I had no luck with teachers for whom music lessons were limited to mechanical exercises. I really started to study only at the age of 13, mainly after I fell in love with Mozart’s sonatas. Trying at least to some extent to convey the artistic content and unique grace, I felt the need to improve the technique – it was then that I succeeded, ”writes Albert Einstein.

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• Luca Debargue: “My calling is to be myself”

You are unlikely to be able to program a child so that he grows up as a creative person or achieves success in a particular area. If you want your children to give the world their original ideas, let them be guided not by yours, but by their own feelings.

See more at Online The New York Times.

¹ M. Gladwell “Geniuses and outsiders. Why is everything for some and nothing for others? (Mann, Ivanov & Ferber, 2009).