Here are a few things I believe will help your kids be more innovative. If we want our kids to be successful in the future we need to be actively working on helping them use their innovation muscles.
1. Limit their exposure to media – Do not keep them from TV all together. I find that when you watch kids who have never watched TV or their exposure is limited they play very different than kids who are saturated daily by media. When your kids watch TV to much they replay things they saw on TV in their play. When their exposure is limited they infuse their own world with the things they have seen on TV.
2. Give them problems to solve and traditional tools as well as non-traditional tools to solve those problems.
3. Model and explain innovation to your kids.
4. Help they learn to be flexible. To be an innovator you have to be an early adapter. You need to be familiar enough with what is out there to be tweaking it when everyone else is finally ready to start using it.
5. Tell them what you want the end result to be but resist the urge to tell them how to do it.
6. Play this would be better if. Take everyday items and ask your kids how this item could be better.
7. Make sure that they understand that our God is a creator and through sin we broke God’s perfect world. It’s through invention and innovation that we can begin to repair and rebuild culture. In doing so we can reflect God’s glory to a world that needs to hear and see God’s redemptive work in action.
Revelation 21:5
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
