009: Creating with Kids

When you encourage your kids to get creative it’s important to let them take the lead. Introduce them to supplies, options and ideas but know that you don’t have to force it. I’ve noticed from creating with my own children that sometimes, it’s our own expectations around what a creative activity will look like that leads us to disappointment.

There are a few things you can do to make creating with kids less stressful and more fun! Take some time to let go of those expectations and instead focus on creating intentional thoughts about the activity you’re encouraging them to take part in. Knowing your “why” around getting the kids together to create will help you to get through some of those annoyances that happen along the way.

In this episode, you’ll hear the tips that help me when creating with my own children. I chat about finding the right creative learning style for creating for each of your kids and the importance of the words you speak. Remember, it’s okay if it’s not perfect, it’s okay if it’s messy and it’s even okay if you or your kids get frustrated!

What you’ll find in this episode:

A mindful moment breathing exercise
My story about trying to create with my daughter
Why you should take a moment and pay attention to expectations
The reasons you need to make intentional thoughts around creating
Tips that help me when creating with my kids
How to find what’s right for each of your children: open-ended vs. step by step
Why you should be mindful about the dialogue around your creations and your kid’s creations

Read the transcript of the episode below:

We imagine this beautiful scene: creating with our kids while the birds are chirping and everything is perfect. And then reality hits. This is Episode Nine: Creating with kids.
Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.
Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. We're going to talk today about creating with kids. Before we get started, I wanted to have a segment called a mindful moment.
Today's Mindful moment is going to come from the free guide that's available for you on committed to create.com. It's called five creative steps to less stress. In episode five, I talked all about it. Today, we're going to do step five, which is what do you smell? But it's actually also a breathing exercise. 
So what you do is you imagine a nice, huge garden rose. I love garden roses growing up, when we would go visit my grandma, she had the most beautiful roses. And I remember I just loved going over and just burying my nose into those beautiful roses and smelling them, taking a nice deep breath. So when we do the inhale, I want you to take a nice deep breath imagining that amazing smelling rose.
And then on the exhale, we are going to imagine blowing out a birthday candle on a cake. Nice. Deep exhale. All right. So we are going to just take two nice deep breaths. I want you to start now breathe in, as you think about that amazing garden rose that you're smelling and then breathe out. A nice exhale as you think about blowing out a candle and then do it again, a nice deep breath in and out. 
Breathing is a amazing mindful technique for a reason. It really helps to ground us, to slow down our thinking and our heart rate. And even if you're not super into meditation, breathing can be a really great, short, easy practice to incorporate into your daily life. When you really take the time to do a nice deep breath in and out whenever you happen to think about it.
And maybe you'll do that now, when you see a rose or birthday cake or think about either of those things, take a nice deep breath. And just another reminder, if you haven't grabbed that free guide yet on our website, you can get that at committedtocreate.com or committed to create.com/less stress. And it will walk you through some really fun hands-on creative steps to grounding yourself using your senses, whether you're trying to lessen your stress or deepen your moments of joy and being present. I hope you'll check it out.
All right. So now to get into our podcast topic for today, which is creating with kids, I wanted to tell you a story. When I had my first daughter, I had some really great visions of us creating together and drawing together and doing crafts together. And she was an amazing spirited toddler. No matter what I prepared, no matter what supplies I got, it never turned out the way that I was hoping.
I remember one time, she would chew on things or destroy things like crayons, and I thought I'm going to get those twistable crayons, that will be perfect for her. She won't be able to get to the waxy crayon part as easily. And I bet she'll just love them and create all kinds of beautiful. Fun drawings with them.
Yeah, no. What happened was she twisted all of the crayons out, of course, and then found a way to completely dismantle the plastic parts of these twistable crayons. And I remember thinking: I think that some other children play with these crayons, but she found a way to completely change what I had expected to have happen into a different reality.
I remember another time finding a really fun activity on Pinterest to create some type of goop or slime or something. But this was back before slime was like a fad and I was trying to create some, I can't remember what it was called, Ubleck something or other. And I thought this is going to be great. It'll be a sensory creative activity that we can do together. 
And it was a. Disaster. It was a total Pinterest fail. We got, there was dye everywhere. It got on our chairs. It got everywhere. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I just wanted this to work out. I'm trying to be a fun mom. This is terrible. Because what I had imagined happening was a very Zen experience with music playing and everyone releasing their inner artist, us all looking at each other lovingly, of course, getting along perfectly.
That was for sure happening. And when I say happening, I'm talking about the daydream, I'm talking about the absolute unrealistic daydream that I had in my mind of how this whole creativity moment would go. And it did not go that way. I'm pretty sure I ended in tears, and nothing happened the way that I hoped that I would.
So to begin our conversation in talking about creating with kids, I think it is so important to check ourselves, to see where our expectations are at before we start the activity. Before we get out the supplies that we just got. Take a moment and check in with ourselves and see where we are at. 
We don't plan on having these unrealistic expectations. We don't say, you know, I'd really like to feel terrible today. I'd really love to be disappointed and end up in a ball on the floor, crying and really mad at my kids. That is not what we do. So it's really helpful to take a moment before we start any activity that we're doing with our kids and pay attention and ask ourselves, how am I expecting this to go? Is there another possible way that this might go, can I leave space for this to go a different way? What will I make it mean if my kids don't react the way that I hope they will? Asking ourselves. Those questions can be really helpful to get into the right frame of mind before we ever get started.
Because the reason why we get frustrated when we are creating with our kids is because of what we are thinking ahead of time. And we're normally not thinking those things on purpose. Like I said, we're not trying to make ourselves miserable. The reason why we get so frustrated is because of what we are thinking. We want to believe that it's because of how our kids are acting and what they're doing, but the truth is that there are some people who in that same situation, don't end up feeling the same way that we do. 
Again, this is not a chance to compare yourself and tell yourself that you're terrible and that other mom whosr patience is better. It's a chance to realize that it's our thinking that is causing how we feel, which is so powerful because we can become aware of what we're thinking and change what we're thinking. 
So some of the thoughts that might be on default that we might go to automatically might be things like: they never appreciate anything I do. I'm not speaking from experience here. I've never thought that myself. I'm just kidding. That is a go-to for me, that is a trigger for me in lots of situations in life, but we're not going to go into all of those right now, but definitely when I've done things and put effort in and wanted to have a really fun, creative moment with my kids, I will default to, they never appreciate anything.
Another thought that I've had is: why do I try so hard when they act like this? I want you to think about when things haven't gone well with your kids when you're trying to create something, what is your go-to belief or story or thought, what is it that you tell yourself? Or what is it that you go and tell your friend or your husband or whoever you might kind of be venting to after it happens?
Do you say something like, they never appreciate anything I do, or I shouldn't have tried so hard or why do I even try? You guys, the reason I'm laughing is because these are go to beliefs and thoughts that I have often had in these situations. Because let's be honest. Oftentimes when we create with our kids, maybe the kids don't even want to do it in the first place. Maybe they're fighting with each other. Maybe they're complaining that they don't enjoy it. Maybe they start throwing the thing that you have there for them to create with, who knows. You guys could give me a whole plethora of the different things that they might do to ruin the Zen moment. Okay. I totally get it, but I think it's helpful to know what are the thoughts that we go to that are default for us in these situations.
Again, there's nothing wrong with you for having these thoughts. These are totally normal. In almost every episode so far, I have mentioned ever since I introduced it in episode four, where we talked about the brain being our greatest tool, I mentioned there the motivational triad, and I'm going to bring it up again because it's so helpful to know why our brain is creating these thoughts, why they are the default for us.
And the brain creates these thoughts to try to keep us safe. Back long time ago when we were trying to keep the human race alive, these thoughts were helpful, but they're not anymore. And the motives are number one to seek pleasure, two to avoid pain and three to conserve energy. So let's think about those motives in this situation or any of these types of situations.
With kids and creativity, when it doesn't go exactly the way that we hoped it would. Number one for seek pleasure. We think it would be so much easier, more pleasurable to not be doing this. Number two is to avoid pain. We think if there's any resistance or struggle, it's not worth it. And number three is to conserve energy.
And so our brain comes up with thoughts like: this as a complete waste of time. Those will be our default go tos. If we don't pay attention to what our brain is coming up with for us, our brains, just trying to keep us safe, but it's not keeping us safe. It's keeping us from having these experiences that we want to have.
So we have to ask ourself the question, why did I want to create in the first place with my kids? Why is it important to me to have creativity be a part of our lives? If we don't have these intentional thoughts? If we don't think about our why and our motives, what we want our motives to be, then we will let the default go-to thoughts take over all of those motives, the seek pleasure, avoid pain, conserve energy. Those will always be what our brain goes to first. If we don't intentionally replace those thoughts with the thoughts that we want to have, because we don't want our kids to just seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy.
That's when they're not doing anything, we don't want them to just be consuming all the time. So this is where I'm answering the question. Why do I want to create with my kids? Why is this important to me? So I can tell you one reason for me is that I believe that it's really good for us to create and not just consume. 
Now, I love to consume with the best of them, but I believe that we were created to create, and that that's true for my kids as well. I believe that creating can be healing for them. I believe that children and adults learn through play and creativity. I want my kids to explore new ideas and I believe that creativity can be fun.
All of those thoughts are helpful thoughts that are going to help me be committed to create with my kids. That's the goal here committed to create. If I default to the thoughts that come naturally, I am going to get frustrated and I'm going to be upset. 
Now, am I saying that if you have these helpful thoughts, these intentional thoughts that you're never going to get frustrated? No. But knowing that feeling frustrated is coming from your thoughts is going to help you when you decide that even if you feel frustrated, you still want to push through, you still want to have a creative house and you want to offer creativity to your kids and maybe you even want to create together with your kids.
So knowing that the negativity will come up, I mean, I'm not telling you that, oh, how about we just changed the way we're thinking and nothing will ever be a problem again? No, the negativity will come up, but then you might have thoughts that you can turn to during that process. Like someone might get upset and that's okay. And creativity is messy and it's worth the mess. And my kids might want to create differently than I imagined. And that's okay. Your helpful thoughts might be different. You'll need to think about what happens when you typically try to set up a creative activity for your kids, or when you try to create together with them and come up with the thoughts that help you.
If the thoughts that I suggest are unhelpful, then let them go and come up with something that is helpful for you. And just give you some of my ideas in case you want to adopt them yourself. 
Now I just wanted to share some other tips that helped me in creating with my kids. And that is a lot of trial and error. 
For me, it's really important to find my kids' interests. Of course, I love to introduce them to things that I'm interested in, but they may not always follow that. I try to pay attention to the things that they talk about, look at or tell me they want to. You also want to pay attention to your child or your children's creativity styles, which might be different for each child.
Some children really enjoy doing things step-by-step they want to know what comes next, and other kids want something completely open-ended. I know that with one of my children, I've been really excited from time to time to have a specific art project that we would do together. And they say, I'm just going to do it my own way.
Okay. And well, I should be really excited that they are that creative, that they want to just do something totally different. I have to admit that there have been times that I have a little disappointed because I thought that we were going to use the pains to come up with a van Gogh, inspired painting or something like that. And that's not always how it goes. 
Now. I do believe that it's great to have children do things that are more open-ended and to not prescribe a very specific, step-by-step a very specific step-by-step procedure in every situation. Now, there might be some things where it really makes sense to follow instructions, to create something or step-by-step instructions to create something. But I know that, for example, I love teaching art masterpiece. I know some people call it, meet the masters in the schools where you go in and you teach about a different artist and you highlight one of their paintings. And then you typically do an art project that's inspired by that painting.
And oftentimes I would find examples that other people had left behind of what they had done with the class. And so many times it was very specific, like a coloring page that they had to color a specific way. And for me, I love leaving it open-ended a little bit more because I know that the kids are a little bit more creative sometimes then we give them credit for. 
Now. You might find a child that really wants a lot of direction. And I think that that's okay. I always want to try to encourage them to make some of their own creative choices. But you find what's right for each of your kids. I know that with this one child of mine, I let them go with whatever they want to do because they are so creative and it doesn't work out well when I try to say, well, let's do this particular project, even if I'm not being super strict or specific about how we'll do it, I have to let a lot of things go.
So finding your kids' creativity style, whether they liked the step-by-step or open-ended is really helpful. So this also might mean that if you want to create with multiple children at the same time, it's really good to be aware if one child has one creativity style and another one has a totally different creativity style, one might kind of be off doing their own thing.
And the other one wants to sit close to you and have you help them with all the different steps. And so it might look different. The birds might not be chirping the exact way that you thought they were going to be with the music playing and everyone getting along perfectly. Remember that vision? It might not happen exactly as you think. And that's okay. 
Going along with this, I think it's really helpful to offer them some supplies that are readily available. So I know that for me, a lot of things changed in our house when I started having supplies out and visible that they could see and that they could access at any time. 
Now, my kids are a little bit older. Most of them, my kids are 10, 8, 5, and two at this point. And so the two year old definitely gets into a lot of things, but I like having paper out and, you know, a bunch of supplies that they can get into and create with. And I think that that can be really helpful. I also think that some kids it's helpful for us when we sit down alongside them.
And not that we are prescriptive telling them exactly what they need to do, but if they see like, oh, I never thought of cutting up the paper and gluing it into different, you know, shapes or connecting it in that way. Like, that's kind of cool. Just giving them an idea. I know that when I want my kids to go outside, oftentimes all I have to do is go outside.
I can't just say go outside. Sometimes it works, but oftentimes they want to be around me or they are paying attention to what I'm doing and I think that that can go for creativity as well. If I sit down and I start using some new supplies that I've gotten, they're often times going to be interested and want to check out what I'm doing.
Another tip for creating with kids is to not interrupt their creativity. I know that it's really tempting sometimes to want to narrate everything they're doing and talk about it. But sometimes the kids are getting into a zone where creating something they're thinking about something they're playing with something. And when we interrupt with our dialogue, for some reason, all I do love to talk. We all know this is true, but for some reason we kind of feel the need to let them know we're there and, and we're watching and that's fine. But if you notice that your child is really in the zone, you don't need to come over and say, what do you make? What are you doing? There's a flow that they're experiencing that when you come over and intervene and start talking to them that it can pull them out of that. So that's just something to be aware of. If your kid, your child, or the child that you're working with is really in the zone and enjoying their creativity, let them enjoy it. You don't need to interrupt it. You're still a good caregiver or a good parent or a good friend. If you let them stay in the zone without interrupting and believe me, I'm not perfect at that. But I do know that it's very helpful. 
Another thing to be aware of is to try not to label their creativity as good or bad or right or wrong. As often as you can. I know it's really hard, especially when you're so proud of them, to not say, oh my gosh, I love it so much. It's so good. It's so pretty. I do this. Okay. But be careful to not overdo it because what happens when maybe you don't love what they made or they don't love what they made and they think it's terrible. And you're saying, no, it's so good. Let them say what they want to say about it. Allow them to express to you how they feel about it. And maybe ask them some more questions. Like, tell me, tell me why you think that, or tell me more about it. 
Or you can, at that point, once they're having a discussion with you, you can do a little bit of narrating. I see that you added some blue, how did you decide to do that? Have some discussions about their creativity without always saying it's so perfect. It looks so good because I make something that I think looks terrible and everyone's telling me no, no, no, no. It's amazing. It's the best thing I've ever seen, I might start to not trust them. And I might also be creating things, always hoping to get this incredible response of approval instead of creating without needing it to be perfect. 
Ding, ding, ding, are we seeing a theme here? How can we encourage our children to do mindful creative? We don't expect it to be perfect. And maybe we don't even tell them that it is perfect. Even if we think that it is. We don't want them to become obsessed with an expectation of perfection and expectation of it being super beautiful and amazing every time we want to encourage them to create, encourage them to be present in the moment and to enjoy the creating, no matter what the outcome looks like.
So going along with this is to be careful what you say about your own creating when you are with them. So when you're drawing and they're drawing and you're like, oh, mine looks so terrible. I'm so bad at this. I can't draw you're way better than me. Mine looks off. Okay. When you start having that dialogue about your own creations out loud, what do you think that they're going to start doing?
I'm not trying to make you feel guilty if you've already done this, or if your kid is really hard on themselves, I'm not saying that they necessarily learned it from you. I think sometimes they can be born with an innate sense of wanting to be perfect. We all have different personality types. Right. But be careful what you say about your own creativity, because it does influence the way that they're going to think about theirs.
And that doesn't mean that you need to say mine is amazing. It looks so good, but maybe you can talk about how much you're enjoying the process, how much you love doing it instead of focusing on the final product, because there is so much magic in the process and not just in the product. 
So as you're creating with kids, I want to encourage you not to force it, but just to introduce supplies and options and ideas and let your children take the lead. If you can, before you get started, ask yourself those questions about what your expectations are and what you think might happen, pay attention to your feelings, your frustrations. Know that they come from your thoughts and have some of those helpful thoughts that you can turn to, that you can know your why, and that it's stronger than the annoyances that happen when we get kids together to create.
Notice when your brain is creating thoughts based on the motivational triad. That is your brain's default. That is its go-to. And remind yourself that it's okay if it's not perfect, it's okay if it's messy and it's even okay if you and or your kids get frustrated. 
I hope this episode will be helpful for you as you attempt to create in the future with your kids. We all get frustrated. Sometimes it helps to have some go-to thoughts and some tips for creating together. 
Now I wanted to share a review from iTunes, and this is from Willis. It says "a moment to get out of our brains. Whoa. Do I feel seen after listening to how lettering changed my life? That's episode two, I loved hearing Lisa talk about how lettering gave her permission to self explore and try out new hobbies. I've always struggled to have positive self-talk during times of stress, but after listening, I made the connection of how mindfulness helps with thought management. I can't wait to try this out for myself and give myself a moment. Step out of my brain." 
Thank you so much for your review. You can send us an email at hello@handlettereddesign.com and you'll get to pick any of our online courses. And if you have not left a review yet, you can go ahead and do that on iTunes. It really helps other people to find the show. And I always love hearing anything, insights or ideas that you've had. I want to invite you to create with your kids to create on your own. And I love it when you tag me and you can do that on Instagram, at hand lettered design. And I love it when you share the show with a friend. 
I am so grateful to be here with you, and I will talk to you again next week.

Links:
5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy

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I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.

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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!

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009: Creating with Kids

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