HOW TO Cultivate Creativity at Home

Thinking outside the box is a skill that can be learned at any age. Here's how.

- LAURIE YARNELL

I was a very dreamy kind of kid, the type who was always drawing. I created a family newspaper at a young age and, with an equally artsy pal down the block, I’d make up stories and write plays and songs to perform for the neighborhood parents.

Even today I’d say the number one word I’d use to describe myself as an adult is “creative.” Writing is my profession, and outside work I still enjoy drawing, painting and coming up with creative approaches to solving problems. Not surprisingly, I was always interested in helping my own kids find their creative selves too, and I’m pretty sure it worked: One became an actor, and the other developed a passion for rock climbing, the ultimate problem-solving athletic pursuit.

But I had to wonder: Was creativity something I passed down to them, or did they grow to be creative people because we valued creativity as a family?

“The reality is that creativity is fostered over time,” says Andres S. Bustamante, Ph.D., an assistant professor of human development in context at the School of Education of the University of California, Irvine. Experts agree that creativity can be taught or developed and that anyone can learn to be creative, whatever their age or personality. Yet popular misconceptions about creativity abound, chief among them the idea that creativity is a fixed skill and some people have it and others don’t.

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“Creativity is the ability to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives or possibilities for solving problems, communicating or entertaining,” says Ben Michaelis, Ph.D., a New York City–based clinical psychologist and executive coach who helps patients achieve mental health and well-being through creativity.