We teach our children to be brave through our own bravery, honest by our own honesty. As we are willing to be beginners, we model for our children the grace of starting something new. Setting aside perfectionism, we embrace process over product. Valuing ourselves and our endeavors, we learn a healthy immunity to criticism. Our children do the same. As our children enter school and participate in new and different activities, we work to encourage and maintain their optimism and willingness to try new things. We take every action we can to ensure our children’s safety, creative and otherwise, and with our knowledge of the potential pitfalls comes responsibility. But our understanding grants us power, and we can consciously protect and guide our children as they discover their own creative identities.
Children learn by what we do. If we allow ourselves to create freely, without the need for perfection, our children learn to do likewise. When Domenica was little, I often entertained her by drawing horses and dogs. My horses looked real enough, but my dogs? My dogs had an alarming tendency to look like cats.
“Draw Calla Lily,” Domenica would demand, naming our white standard poodle. “That is Calla Lily,” I would defend myself.
“The ears are wrong,” Domenica would say.
“They’re okay,” I would defend myself.
“Try again,” Domenica would command.
And so I would try again, rendering a dog that was slightly more doglike.
“Now you try it,” I would urge her. And try she did, drawing a dog that looked more doglike than mine, but still imperfect.
“Bravo!” I would applaud her. “That’s excellent,” I would say.
“It’s not right,” Domenica would protest.
“It’s really very good,” I would say.
Domenica’s horses, like mine, were more horselike.
“Oh, that’s very good,” I would praise her.
As Domenica grew older, her drawings grew more and more accurate, but her standards also rose.
“Draw me Silver Lily,” I would say, naming her childhood pony, and a creditable Silver Lily would emerge. Still, the rendering was not quite perfect, and she was frustrated by that. “It’s still very good,” I would tell her. “It’s good enough.”
Working in clay, Domenica managed to create horselike figures. They weren’t perfect, but they were, I told her, “perfect enough.”
When Domenica was in fifth grade, she received a daunting assignment: write a story and illustrate it. Her story, predictably, involved horses, and her illustrations were decent renderings of the horses she described. I still have Domenica’s “book.” It wasn’t perfect, just perfect enough.
As parents, we have a responsibility to model imperfection, especially if we are adept in an area that interests our child. An actor friend of mine shows her budding actress daughter films of her earliest monologue rehearsals and of herself in her school play. “See? Everyone starts as a beginner,” she tells her daughter. The path to mastery is a long one, no matter the natural talent. It falls to us to show this to our children and to let them see the ups and downs of our own journey, our own imperfect process.
Modeling imperfection also models the faith to try again, to begin anew. In every creative life there are setbacks, and the successful people are not the ones who never fail but the ones who get up and try again after their failures. The faster we can get up, the better. Wallowing in our mistakes only reinforces the behavior of wallowing in our mistakes. Correcting our mistakes, on the other hand, being willing to move forward and willing to make more mistakes, embraces that making—and learning from—our mistakes is an inevitable part of moving ahead.
Our children are exposed to extreme accomplishment on a daily basis, whether it is watching child prodigies or young athletes on TV or YouTube. Because the extraordinary is so easily accessible, children are inundated with images of finished products without any discussion or documentation of the years of blood, sweat, and tears that went into producing their now-flawless performances. Amateurism—which translates to “for love”—is a wonderful goal as we urge our children not to be perfect, but to explore creative outlets for pleasure and for pleasure alone, without the pressure of someone else’s “perfect” performance as the only worthy goal.
Perfection is, first and foremost, an unattainable mirage. It will always hover out of reach. Perfectionism is a blocking device. It is a refusal to move ahead. It is a debilitating loop that causes us to lose sight of the larger picture as we become obsessed with the details. Instead of creating freely, experimenting, and allowing misguided choices to reveal themselves later, we drive ourselves crazy trying to get every detail right before we put our pen to the paper or the horn to our lips. We “correct” ourselves to the point where our creative act becomes bland and joyless, where our original spark of inspiration is in danger of being smothered.
Artists who create freely and correct later are productive. They are happy. And they are the people who have a body of work to show for their efforts. When we erase until the paper tears, or see our children doing this, we must halt the obsession. Perfectionism is not a quest for the best—it is the pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us we will never be good enough. Perfection is egotism parading as virtue. Do not be fooled. We are good enough. And our children are good enough, as well.
MODELING IMPERFECTION
An Exercise 
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try __________________________________________.
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try __________________________________________.
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try __________________________________________.
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try __________________________________________.
If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try __________________________________________.
Try modeling imperfection for your child. Choose something you know you will not do perfectly and allow your child to witness this.
Now ask your child, if she could try any creative activity that she’s never tried before, what would it be? See if you can devise a way for her to take a small step into the realm she mentions. It does not have to be large. If she says “cowgirl,” perhaps there is a horse ranch nearby where she could pet a velvety nose. If she says “moviemaker,” allow her to film a short movie on your phone or camera. Allow yourself—and your child—to be imperfect as you work with this exercise. You are after fun, not finesse.
Morning Pages help us detach from our censor and allow us a place to vent, celebrate, wonder, dream, plan. Since there is no wrong way to do Morning Pages, we can allow ourselves complete freedom within their confines. Doing Morning Pages, we enter the world more clearheaded. Doing Morning Pages for an extended period of time, we begin to speak up where we may have remained silent in the past.
“That’s okay,” we may have trained ourselves to respond when the plumber was an hour late, when the babysitter canceled, when our children refused to eat what we’d cooked even after an hour of coaxing. “It’s not the end of the world,” we decided, and we were probably right about that. But what do we really mean when we say, “That’s okay”? Do we actually feel “okay,” or do we really feel frustrated, inconvenienced, invisible, disrespected, dispassionate, accepting? “Okay” covers a gamut of emotions, and as we work with Morning Pages, we find ourselves being more specific and more honest about what we actually feel.
“Actually, I can’t afford for you to be late today,” we tell the plumber. “I will go ahead and call someone else if you aren’t able to arrive at the time we planned.” As we experiment with voicing our feelings honestly, we discover our boundaries. We come to clarity.
Many of us harbor a belief that we must sacrifice our selves for our children. This is misplaced martyrdom. Our children do better when we are authentically ourselves. When Domenica was still young enough to be playpen-bound, I would place her amid a tower of toys and sit down to write. I would cue up nursery rhymes, feeling martyred as I tried for endless patience. Finally, one day I couldn’t take it any longer. I cued up the Rolling Stones song “Brown Sugar.”
“This is what your mommy really likes,” I told Domenica, who teetered on wobbly legs, dancing to the beat. From that day onward, I played music I liked, and Domenica responded with lively enthusiasm. I played Bruce Springsteen and told her, “Mommy likes ‘Thunder Road.’” To my delight, Domenica also responded to this anthem. She gurgled with glee. “Like it!” she called out, dancing happily.
There is a great relief in allowing ourselves to be honest. There is a great relief in admitting our true feelings. As we begin to trust ourselves, showing ourselves that we care what we are feeling, that we are listening, we are able to express ourselves appropriately and kindly. It is when we try to stuff our complex emotions into “It’s okay” that we risk exploding and losing control of what comes out of our mouths. When we express our emotions honestly, we give our children permission to do the same.
As our children grow, they also start to identify and voice their own boundaries and opinions. As they do, we must turn a tuned ear toward what they are saying. Yes, it may be quite inconvenient when they announce that they are not going to eat broccoli or when they tear up the book we have just bought. But rebelliousness is a sign of growing independence, and just as we do not want to live a life where we stuff our feelings, our children also desire to express their newly developing attitudes and opinions. Recognizing this, we learn to practice compassion.
Observing our children and giving them room to express themselves, we see the snowflake pattern of their souls beginning to reveal itself. This is not to say that the growth process should just be a free-for-all where we relinquish control altogether. Rather, by setting clear boundaries and structures within which our children can be free to express themselves, we give them true safety: the encouragement to make their own discoveries and the room in which to do it.
HONEST FEELINGS
An Exercise
Fill in the blanks quickly:
If I let myself admit it, I feel ___________________________________________.
If I let myself admit it, I feel ___________________________________________.
If I let myself admit it, I feel ___________________________________________.
If I let myself admit it, I feel ___________________________________________.
If I let myself admit it, I feel ___________________________________________.
EDUCATION
“Creativity is more than giving your kids paints and paper,” says Russell Granet, a leading expert in arts education. “It’s a way to see the world, a way to look at things.” Granet is the founder of the Arts Education Resource in New York City and the executive director of the Lincoln Center Institute. He argues that quality arts education is a right, not a privilege, for all learners. His impact on the field has been far-reaching and impressive, and as an academic, artist, teacher, and father, his passion for the arts is palpable and definitive.
“If we go through the world looking through the lens of creativity, we set up innovative thinking in our kids. I think that non-artists should actively think like artists. That creative problem-solving skill is transferrable, and we have to teach our kids that.” Granet acknowledges the pressures of being a parent, navigating school, play, and home routines. “The rituals and realities of parenthood exist,” he affirms, “and we have to be creative within them. We have to make dinner. We have to prepare the bath and help our kids do homework. But we can indulge a stream of artistic consciousness along the way. Art is a springboard for everything else.”
When I ask Granet what he thinks most hinders our children in the educational realm, he answers me without hesitation. “Test pressure,” he says. “There’s pressure on the kid, the parent, the teacher, the principal to deliver high test scores. At about age seven, the pressure to perform on tests begins.”
As long as there is pressure to test well, there is pressure on getting the “right” answer. “Learning becomes about right versus wrong, and the stakes are very high to be right,” Granet says. Where is there room for creative thinking, and where is there room for kids to make mistakes? Mistakes are valuable. We learn from mistakes. And if we are learning only that we’d better not make any mistakes, we are in a precarious position indeed.
“In school, kids are put into categories: creative or intelligent,” Granet continues. “This ignores crossover and does a disservice to the kids. It perpetuates the myth that there is no crossover. And as long as we perpetuate that myth, we perpetuate that reality.”
If schools do not, in general, foster creativity, then the responsibility falls on the parent to find these opportunities. If art classes are not offered at our children’s schools, then we must find or create opportunities for our children to explore the arts.
Nancy, a mom of two in Indianapolis, puts it this way: “Parents have to take their kids’ creative education into their own hands. Yes, there’s cost involved. But if we can put our kids in sports, we can take them to a community theater play. We can expose them to the arts, whether they think they’re going to like it or not. If we don’t show them what’s out there, and they’re not getting it at school, then how will they ever know their own possibility?”
With pressure to perform in school and “right” answers threatening to matter above all else, it is all the more important that we shepherd our children toward creativity. Judging early artistic efforts is artist abuse. Ridiculing interests or attempts is cruel. We also must be on the lookout for those who would undermine our children’s nascent creative impulses. We cannot tolerate anyone who throws this kind of cold water on the burgeoning creativity of our child. As much as we can, we must model a healthy respect for this exploration and let our children know that not only are their creative impulses fun, they are vital.
In an overscheduled, high-intensity academic culture, children are sleep-deprived and overwhelmed with homework at a frighteningly young age. Pressured to do more so that their chances of getting into college are increased, they are at risk of adding activities that are not of their own choosing, activities about which they are not truly passionate. Pushing themselves to excel for the sake of excelling, they are unlikely to gain pleasure from the act of learning—or retain much information past the test date. They count the minutes until “the job is done” and learn that they must work, satisfied or not, for the sake of work rather than follow a passion that may, indeed, lead to a great deal of satisfying work.
“The saddest thing I’ve seen,” says Christine Koh, “is creativity take a backseat to academics.” When students are scolded for their creative “wrong” answers, they are taught to not create. They are taught to stuff their imagination and focus on rote. The academic shaming that exists in our culture is both rampant and tragic.
It took years of teaching in academia, a dubious privilege that I myself experienced, to identify the elusive but deadly enmity that academia harbors toward creativity. Outright hostility is one thing. It can be encountered and responded to. But infinitely more deadly and terrifying is the subtle discounting that may numb student creativity in the academic setting.
Student work, when scrutinized, is seldom appreciated. It is a rare teacher who will acknowledge strengths as often and as readily as he or she points out shortcomings. I am not arguing that the world of academia should become an exalted artists’ studio. It is, however, my point that creative, intuitive little souls who are trying to flourish and grow become crippled when they are forced to become overly cerebral. When youngsters are daunted early and unfairly because of their inability to conform to a norm that is not their own, a long road to creative recovery is paved ahead of them. Without specific tools, ego strength, or language, many creatives who are routinely squelched in academic settings languish for years in the wake of these shaming experiences.
Sometimes, opportunity will knock for our children. We are faced, then, with a decision. Do we allow them to move forward in an audition process that could take them out of school and onto a national stage—or lead to heartrending rejection? If they are selected to be in a television commercial, do the proceeds from that commercial go into a bank account that is theirs to access at a later date or to a college fund? In these rare and extreme cases, we must judge our children’s needs and desires on an individual basis. There are stories of young working artists that end well, and then there are those that do not. As long as we encourage and support our children’s individual voices as we navigate the process, the odds are in our favor.
When Audrey was in second grade, she took a standardized test to determine placement in elementary school. Placing in the top percentile and labeled “highly creative,” she was invited to attend a small magnet elementary school. It would mean leaving her circle of friends and the known world she had experienced to date. But Audrey had not enjoyed second grade. She had often been singled out for not conforming, and after much discussion, her parents decided to enroll her in the magnet school, where she would know no one, but where perhaps her own individuality would be encouraged more than before.
“It was here that, for the first time, I had teachers who embraced me and all of my idiosyncrasies,” Audrey recalls. “The projects and assignments were graded on both academic performance and creativity. Here, I was the ‘theater kid’ and the ‘funny one’ instead of a ‘smart aleck,’ as I had been described in my old school, where my teachers seemed to spend every day trying to stamp out my creative impulses. Going to Magnet gave me the confidence to continue down that path of self-expression and exploration through middle school and beyond.” It is interesting to note that Audrey, and an impossibly high percentage of her classmates at Magnet, are now professionally successful in some area of the arts. All of them credit their elementary school with their later success.
“I wasn’t sure if the new school would be a legitimate opportunity, or if it might be suffocating for her—too much, too soon of everything,” Audrey’s mother remembers now. “I like to keep a balance with my kids. But she wasn’t finding what she needed in her school. And happily, she did find it at Magnet. I’m glad I let her go.”
Allowing our children to blossom creatively does not mean that they will become professional artists, but it does mean that they are more likely to enter a profession where they are more fully themselves.
With active parents who are aware of what their children must find outside of their school, there is hope for our children’s creative blossoming. And with educators such as Russell Granet at the forefront of the field, there is hope for the educational system as well. By focusing on what we can do as parents, we can counter a misguided educational system.
FROM CHILD TO PARENT
An Exercise
Choose something that your child knows more about than you do, and ask him to give you a lesson in it. Be open to learning and open to his knowledge. His own act of teaching—and your enthusiastic learning—is likely to thrill him. “You know things,” this tells him. “You have something to say, something to teach. I want to learn from you.”
THE MONSTER IN THE CLOSET: SHAME AND CRITICISM
When our children cry out in the night, afraid that there’s something in the closet or under the bed, we confidently tell them that there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re right next door, their teddy bear is here to protect them, and everything is going to be okay. “It’s not real,” we tell them. “You’re safe.”
When our children are unfairly shamed or criticized, however, sometimes by our own words, assisting in their recovery will require some finesse on our part. Shaming our children for their artistic expression is something we must be careful to avoid. If we do find ourselves lashing out, we must be quick to make amends. “Stop singing! You’re really annoying me!” may require an addendum: “I want you to sing and express yourself. You have a beautiful voice. I was just frustrated because it was getting very loud and I couldn’t hear Aunt Cynthia on the phone.”
Looking back at our own histories, were there times when we were made to feel foolish for wanting to express ourselves? We must be aware that our own unmourned losses create emotional scar tissue, and in an effort to avoid our own wounds, we may push our children’s early artistic attempts away.
“My mother was beautiful,” says Holly. “She was a southern woman, tall, thin, and gorgeous. She prided herself on her manners, style, and decorum, and wanted her daughters to emulate the same.” Holly’s two older sisters were the spitting image of their mother: stunning brunettes with slight frames. But Holly was very different. Nearly a foot shorter, with a stocky build and dirty-blond hair, Holly had her father’s athletic physique.
“I wasn’t like my sisters, and I was always aware of that,” she remembers now. “They took ballet from age five, and I tried to follow in their footsteps, but I was about as far from a natural ballerina as you could get. I switched to gymnastics,” says Holly, “and I became a great tumbler—a power gymnast. By age ten I was competing in junior events. And by age ten, I was aware that my short, muscular build might be okay in the gym, but it didn’t look right in the dresses my mother wanted me to wear for the parties she threw. So I started making my own clothes. I loved expressing myself that way, and even though my mother didn’t approve of the crazy designs and combinations I came up with, I made them—and wore them—anyway. She didn’t like it, but in general, she didn’t stop me.”
Holly remembers one particularly painful day. “My aunt and cousins came for a dinner party. I was eleven, and I had just won the highest award I’d ever won in gymnastics. I had the ribbon in my bedroom and I could hardly wait to share it. I put together another one of my crazy outfits, and came downstairs proud of what I was wearing. My mother was horrified, saying that I couldn’t ‘wear that for company.’ She forced me into the same dress my sisters were wearing and I was uncomfortable and out of place strapped inside its pink frills. Trying to improve how I looked, I added some bracelets I had made and pulled my hair into a long, sideways braid. When my aunt and cousins arrived, we stood on the porch waiting to greet them. My aunt looked us all up and down, and then turned to my mother. ‘Well, at least two of them got your looks and sense of style,’ she said. I was totally embarrassed. I didn’t say a word the whole night, and I didn’t show my gymnastics ribbon to anyone.”
Now Holly looks back on pictures of herself at that time. “I looked great,” she says ruefully. “I looked athletic and strong. But I felt nothing but awkward compared to my mother and sisters and their southern ideal of beauty. When I see pictures of myself wearing what I wanted to wear, I see a real personality. But it wasn’t mirrored back to me as something good, and it made me feel embarrassed of myself as a person, and diminished the value of my being an athlete. I wish I could go back and reassure that kid.”
Holly’s story is one that is, sadly, common. Made to feel physically awkward, we recoil from the spotlight. The athlete who may shine on the gymnastics mat, hamming it up for the judges, shrinks from sight in an ill-fitting dress that is asking her to be someone she’s not. Asked to be someone she’s not, it’s a short trip to starting to doubt herself as a gymnast as well. Shamed for her different build as well as for her creative attempts at dressing herself, Holly was doubly stung. “I wanted to be invisible that night,” she remembers. “That was all I wanted.”
Being shamed for expressing ourselves or being criticized unfairly, we start to learn that putting any expression out into the world for attention is a dangerous act. Being wrongly shamed as creatives, we learn that we are wrong to create. Burying this belief under apathy or pessimism, the shame lives on, doing push-ups while it waits for us to try expressing ourselves again, only to resurface stronger than ever.
This is why many of us feel embarrassed to admit our own creative dreams. This is why many of us are afraid of the creative dreams emerging in our children.
We must, must be brave here. We must face the things that we do not want to face in ourselves, or we risk remaining blocked and discouraging our children as well. Am I saying that there is no such thing as helpful criticism? Of course not. Intelligent criticism, insight that gives us an internal aha! and lights the way forward in a gentle, productive way is right criticism. Criticism that shames, that asks “How dare you?,” that snickers, that nitpicks, is wrong criticism. Shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an attempt to avoid our own shame. Shaming someone else is an attempt to prevent another person from acting in a way that will trigger our own embarrassments.
The act of making art is both scary and healing. Art brings light to places that have remained dark. Art brings perspective. Making art, at any level, is an act of courage and an expression of faith.
When our children are shamed or criticized, we must be very firm in our support: do not pick up the first doubt. We cannot allow negative thinking to take hold. We must protect ourselves and our children as much as we can from useless criticism. It is impossible to avoid it completely, and so, when wrong criticism arrives on your doorstep, there are a few steps you must take:
Creativity is the only cure for criticism.
THE MONSTER IN THE CLOSET
An Exercise
Fill in the blanks quickly. Do not overthink this exercise.
I felt shamed when __________________________________________.
One person who shamed me was __________________________________.
When I felt shamed, I decided that __________________________.
When I try to shame someone else, I suspect that it is because __________________________________________.
One kind and healing thing I could do for myself is __________________________________________.
One kind and healing thing I could do for my child is __________________________________________.