Lost Values!!!

Sports (joined by entertainment & business) has replaced "Family" in USA (now a theme-park, instead of a country: Disney-FantasyLand), and $$$ has replaced "Love". These are main reasons (besides no real "parents", who are just distracted "chaos-managers") why the

How to Raise Creative Kids

“Where did he come up with that?” Kids often amaze us with their imaginative ideas, and we should give ourselves a pat on back for playing a role in this development. Innovative thinking is essential for success in school and in life, and it’s our job as parents to nurture our kids’ innate desire to be creative. Inventive play fosters original thinking, an asset when children are confronted with new situations. By providing activities that use their creativity and imaginations, we are giving our children an important tool to deal with life down road.

Give them ideas. Children come up with things to do on their own, but we also need to provide them with new ideas of interesting activities. Think back to what you did as a kid. Did you write a diary, create elaborate puppet shows, or sing and dance for relatives? Share ideas from your own childhood experiences. Offer creative writing ideas like writing an episode for a favorite television show or writing a new ending to a favorite story. Craft projects offer another outlet for inspiring imaginations. Craft kits, especially those from Curiosity Kits and ALEX, offer a wide variety of unusual and fun projects. They’ve brought us a long way from sock puppets of our youth. These manufacturers offer ideas and supplies to make such things as scrapbooks, powerballs, soaps, candy, sun catchers, dolls, planes, dinosaurs, jewelry treasures, and lots of decorative items. Kids can gather ideas from instructions, and then give projects their own unique touches.