Teach Your Kid What School Doesn’t (Pt. 5): Unleashing Their Creative Genius at Home

Welcome to the final essay in my series on teaching your kid what school doesn’t. A few weeks ago I shared the five ways traditional school is failing your kid, and I’m walking you through how to flip each failure into a win at home.

• Part 1 was how to personalize your kid’s learning.
• Part 2 was about applying knowledge in the real world.
• Part 3 was all about life skills.
• Part 4 was how to raise an emotionally healthy kid.

And today, you’ll learn how to unleash your kid’s creative genius at home.

Thanks for being here, and happy reading.

By age 10, that number had dropped to 30%. By the time these kids reached adulthood, it had dwindled to a mere 2%.

What does this tell us, exactly?

That creativity isn’t something you have or don’t have. It’s a natural characteristic that is largely unlearned over time. And the main culprit in that “unlearning” can actually be school.

For example, a five-year-old will tell you a paperclip could be a spaceship, an earring, a tiny sword, and a fishing hook all in one breath. That’s divergent thinking, the ability to look at something and see a hundred possibilities. But after twelve years of being conditioned to find the exact right answer (to sit still, obey your teacher, and keep your mouth shut), the paperclip becomes, well, a paperclip.

Ironically, the same qualities that the world now rewards (pushing boundaries, questioning the rules, connecting two ideas nobody has ever thought to connect) are the same ones that school defines as defiance.

But don’t worry. Your kid’s creative fire is in there, and you can fan that flame at home.

Three ways to unleash your kid’s creative genius at home

1. Prime your home for “productive boredom.”

We’ve all heard about “letting your kid be bored,” but that’s a bit of an oversimplification. If your house is filled only with a TV and junk food, then telling your kid to buzz off and go be bored is going to be a pretty miserable experience for everyone. But if your house is a goldmine of books, arts, crafts, things to build and explore, then your kid’s creativity will naturally flourish. Montessori learning does this really well. It intentionally primes kids’ environment for free play, so at every corner of the room, kids can find something different to “get into” that stimulates their brain and allows them to build something. This is the prime environment for your kid to be bored in.

Try these at home:

• Start the “morning basket ritual.” Before you go to bed, put together a small basket for your kid to play with the next day: books, tennis balls, a handful of Polly Pockets, watercolors, ingredients to make cookies, marbles, pen and paper — the possibilities are endless. It doesn’t have to be large or expensive. The point is that as soon as your kid wakes up in the morning, they immediately have something priming them for “productive boredom” that day. And if you have multiple kids, try putting different things in their basket and let them problem-solve to put it all together. Rotate what’s in the basket as needed. (This is also an excellent way to start the day as a parent. Instead of little ones tugging on your shirt and begging you to entertain them from the moment they wake up, you can point them to their basket and make your coffee in peace. It makes for a quiet, unstructured, but still productive morning for everyone.)
• Be the fun house. Keep your house stocked with structured play: board games, card games, pickleball racquets, bubbles, Spikeball, paint sets, sidewalk chalk. Your kid will never be able to look at you and say, “But there’s nothing to do.”
• Create a “yes” zone. Every house needs a certified “yes, you can play with that” area. It could be a bin, a drawer, a playroom, or a corner of their bedroom. Stock it with paper, tape, string, kid-friendly scissors, glue, cardboard boxes, glitter, markers, a magnifying glass, stuffed animals — a conglomeration of this and that, always at the ready. Again, I would suggest rotating materials every once in a while to keep it interesting. Some of my favorite memories are cooking dinner while my little girls played with the things in the kitchen cabinet that I had stocked for them so they could “cook” too.
• Books, books, books. Fill your home with them. Talk about them at the dinner table. Read out loud from them. Don’t just keep them lined up on a bookshelf, but make them easy and accessible. Litter them throughout the house. Strategically leave them where you know your kid will find them. Trust me, your kid will be in fantastic shape if their instinct is to read any time they get bored.
• Bonus: cut out passive screen time. (This one needs no explanation.)

2. Encourage divergent thinking.

Try these at home:

• Ask open-ended questions. Avoid “yes/no” questions. Instead, use inquiry-based questions that require your kid to explore multiple angles. What would you invent to make cooking dinner easier? If our house could have one room that has everything you could ever dream of, what’s in it? How would you design a playground on the moon?
• Become a “no wrong answers” household. This is actually harder than it sounds, considering many adults carry baggage from their own childhood into parenting. But you can do it! The goal is to separate “brainstorming” from “evaluating.” You want your kid to feel safe and comfortable sharing out-of-the-box ideas. It can be as simple as stating the obvious: “We’re a no wrong answers household. We expect and encourage you to share your ideas freely.”
• Follow your kid’s curiosity instead of fixing it. When your kid gives an unusual answer to a question (”Why do you think the dog barks at the mailman?”), don’t cut their idea short by saying, “No way, silly,” or “Of course that’s not why.” Follow their mind where it goes, even if it involves the mailman secretly being a robot.
• Play “worst possible idea.” Ask for the absolute worst way to solve something: the worst way to get to school, the worst birthday gift, the worst sandwich on earth. It lowers the stakes, dissolves the pressure to be right, and unlocks your kid’s creative processing in a way that is guaranteed to end with a laugh.

3. More creation than consumption.

The average screen time of a teenager today is roughly seven hours a day. On one hand, this is horrifying. On a more positive note, think of all the things your kid could create in that amount of time. They could learn French, master piano, learn to code, fill a journal with short stories, create their own video game. The difference comes down to how you run your household. Maybe you’re not a “rules heavy” type of household, which is totally fine, but I will warn you: when it comes to getting kids off screens, it’s going to require some strategy.

Try these at home:

• The #1 rule: creation before consumption. Whenever your kid wants to watch a TV show or scroll through social media, they have to do something with their hands first: gardening, writing, building a Jenga tower, painting, finishing that puzzle they’ve been working on, learning a musical instrument, helping cook dinner. Whatever it may be, TikTok or TV can be the reward. But over time, your kid will learn that the feeling of creating is far more rewarding than the feeling of consuming. This will help your kid become a creator first and develop a healthy relationship with their consumption habits.
• Turn their favorite input into an output. Obsessed with a video game? They design their own level on paper, with rules, characters, and a map. Love a specific show? They write the plot of the next season. Help them use things that inspire them to create something original.
• Create “no entertainment” zones throughout the day. A quiet mind is a creative mind, and this is what we need to get back to. Choose a time (say, before 9 am and after 6 pm) where there are no screens allowed. If kids want to be entertained, they need to either develop a healthy relationship with entertainment (reading, playing a board game, or making up a game in the backyard with their siblings) or create something with their hands.
• Be the example for your kid. Not many parents are ready to hear this one, but it’s undeniably true. If your kid sees you constantly watching TV or scrolling your phone, guess what your kid is going to want to do? You can’t set screen time limitations for your kid and not for yourself and then be shocked when they get upset about it. This is a good reminder to look at our own lives and our own habits. Are we as parents unleashing our own creativity? That’s one of the best things you can do for your kid right there, is to value creation over consumption and demonstrate that every day.

Your kid is a natural born creative genius (and what happens in your home can unleash their potential)

To wrap up this series, I just want to reiterate the most important takeaway: what happens in your home is always going to be more important than what happens at school. No matter how good or bad your kid’s school may be, you are not helpless in your kid’s education. Far from it. You’re actually the most important factor involved.

So get excited! Take advantage of this opportunity to intentionally design the environment of your home.

What a blessing it will be for your kids to one day look back and say, “You know, school was fine, but it all started with the culture of learning my parents created right there in our house.”

These essays are a blast to write, and I love sharing what we’re doing and learning in our schools. More than anything, I want to share what’s most valuable for you. So let me know: what do you want to read more about?