Article: Give your child a problem, and ask how to solve it. Then, ask your child to solve it in a different way. Emphasize the process and not the final product. Encourage many solutions to a problem and many routes to a solution. Ask your children to create a house, but be vague and say they can create anything they want. If they get stuck, say they can draw a house, build one out of popsicle sticks or cardboard. Encourage them to make a house in many ways, down to making a dog house or a doll house or a house for a friendly monster. You may really want your child to learn piano or be a ballerina, but let your child choose what activities interest him or her. The more freedom a child experiences in activities, the more flexibility in the child's thinking. Your child will naturally gravitate toward activities that he or she enjoys. Encourage the exploration of those activities. Activities that can help inspire creativity include music, dance, drawing, sculpting, and painting. Have your child take classes such as painting, dancing, sculpting, or pottery. Art is especially helpful for children as it helps create and express the emerging personality. Choose activities that allow the child to learn basic skills, but also fill in the blanks with his or her own creativity. Find classes at your local community center, park district, or private studio. Allow your child to be creative on his or her own, and also in collaboration with other children. Learning with other children can be exciting and educational. Check out children's clubs or after-school activities that allow the children to collaborate and create something together. Working together and allowing the creativity to flow with other children can result in lots of fun ideas and lots of learning. Kids can create a dance, a song, a science project or a functional item like a boat. Get as many senses involved as possible in activities. Use movement, sound, texture, taste, and visual information. You can also play music in the background. One way to do multisensory learning is through learning a song with motions or a dance, or making up your own motions. Play with clay. You can choose different colored clay with different textures. Practice saying the sounds that the clay makes when it is squished, and notice how it smells. If you have an activity with only a few senses, imagine the others. You can ask questions about the senses, like "what sound do you think this could make?" If your kids tell you that the wind is made by the trees, tell them that it could be true, and ask what makes them think that. By allowing them to develop their own theories they can explore their own creativity! However, be careful not to make them think that their outlandish (and incorrect) theory is veritable fact; just point out that it's a possibility. Stay positive in your feedback and most of all, encourage your child to be creative. If you find yourself thinking, "That could never happen" or "that idea will never work", keep it to yourself and praise your child for thinking out of the box. If your child wants to build a spaceship to travel to the moon, encourage the venture without saying "That's impossible." Help collect building materials and encourage your child to think of different ways to get to the moon. If you have a hard time not putting down your child's ideas, say, "That's an interesting approach" or "I've never thought about that before."

What is a summary?
Solve problems in different ways. Allow children to explore their interests. Enroll your child in creative activities. Connect your child creatively with peers. Encourage multisensory learning. Make sure not to falsify your kids' theories unless it's absolutely necessary. Encourage all ideas and keep all comments positive.