Encouragement is important for creativity, especially in children. E is for Encouragement in our Blogging A to Z Challenge. When kids feel good about what they’re creating, they want to do more. That’s why encouragement is key. It inspires.

When children are young, they’re finger painting or creating mud pies. Do you complain about the mess or ignore it completely? Or do you tell them they’re doing great and encourage them?

Whether it’s a child creating a mud pie or an adult creating a solution for a company problem, people, including children, need to feel appreciated and valued. When that happens, they’ll feel confident in their ideas and motivated to keep going.

How Encouragement Helps Creativity

Encouragement is important for creativity because it helps children and adults feel confident about their ideas and motivated to continue pursuing them. When people feel discouraged, they are more likely to give up on their creative endeavors.

Adults need encouragement to continue being creative because the creative process can be filled with self-doubt. It’s easy to second-guess yourself, and encouraging someone can help that person push through those moments of doubt.

Children need encouragement to continue their creative projects because it creates mental growth as they figure out new ways of thinking, looking at things, and problem-solving.

Encouragement is important for creativity because it helps people feel confident about their ideas and provides motivation to keep going when the going gets tough. Feeling appreciated also makes people more likely to take risks, which is an essential ingredient for creativity.

When people are discouraged, they tend to give up more easily and are less likely to come up with new ideas or innovative solutions.

What Is Encouragement

Encouragement can take many forms, from simply telling someone that their idea is good to providing specific feedback that helps them improve their work. Whatever form it takes, encouragement helps people feel supported in their creativity and more likely to keep going.

For children, encouragement should make them feel good, but feedback should be simple and not specific. It gets tricky if you get too specific. You might end up problem-solving for them when their creative play should be an opportunity to learn and figure out things for themselves. Making mud pies and other forms of play should be nurtured, not forbidden. But they also shouldn’t be organized and directed by the parents either.