I’m an only child. That fact is loosely relevant to the topic I will be addressing today, that is, how incredibly important it is to nurture and inspire rather than suppress the creativity of children. Nowadays I have noticed a rather alarming amount of children with iPhones, iPods, tablets, etc. sitting at tables at restaurants and other public places watching shows, playing games, etc. They’re everywhere, and I find it rather discomforting. Children today are so susceptible to the influences of mass media; Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, reality TV shows, The Kardashians, they are their own category, etc. They don’t seem to get the opportunity to break away from the screens that are constantly presented to them. I suppose it’s nice for parents to be able to get and maintain some control over their children, which, as a former child, I can only assume can often seem quite uncontrollable…yeah, I definitely had my cre-cre moments as a child…

Look, this may be completely naive of me, but I think there must be a way to direct one’s children’s energy into expressing their creativity; into inventing something, dancing, building forts, or, more restaurant appropriate, playing games with the salt and pepper shakers, name games, and the like…Get creative people! Now, modern generations of children may seem much less easily entertained, but that is only because they have grown over accustomed to and reliant on being entertained by electronics, and mass media. This creates unrealistic expectations for all aspects of real life, but, to keep on topic, more specifically, for how they expect to be entertained. Yeah, They expect to be entertained, and it has become a natural given that they will be. People ought to focus their energy on inspiring, and nurturing the creativity of children, rather than merely on entertaining them. Children today are developing a mass intolerance to creativity. That may sound a bit harsh on my part, but I only put it this way as a means of expressing the immeasurable importance of this issue.

The thing about mass media today is that, once you start a show, you have to finish it, and obviously need to see what happens in the next episode. Once you open a snap, you gotta snap back, then you’re trapped, and cannot break the streak. Once you start a game, you have to keep playing till you win, then till you reach the next level. It only progresses from there. And, I regret to inform you, reader, but, you as well have been caught by the net. Reading this article, which you must have found on Facebook, or something of the like, you have been caught by and are currently being drawn into the web. Don’t look back. It’s too late.

Earlier, I was going to make an analogy comparing mass media, and the internet to a net, but realized that the internet is coincidently very conveniently and appropriately often shortened to the net…the NET. We have been pretty obviously, maybe too obviously warned that the web, wow, the WEB is just that, a web, or a net. Those are literally words used to express it, and yet we continue to willingly allow ourselves to be drawn into and caught by them. Wow.

I could go on, but should probably stop for not. So, to bring this rant-like article of mine to a close, it is so easy to be caught and reeled in by the net that is the web;) and mass media, etc. and raising a child amidst it all is incredibly tricky. As convenient as it is to have such an easy way to control children today with just a screen, and an internet connection, one has to understand the importance of breaking them away from their tablets and such to experience and come to appreciate the world in all it’s natural beauty and glory. Nurture their creativity, for it not only gives them an outlet through which to express themselves, but also exercises their brains, inspires them, and empowers them. I speak not from the perspective of a trained professional, but rather from that of an only child who was often left to her own devices, to create her own fun using everything from pulled weeds to forests to make villages, short term businesses involving acorn soup, the building and maintenance of fairy houses, etc. and am ever thankful for the opportunity that gave me to explore and indulge the bounds of my creativity. Sorry about the run-on…Anyway, check it, I managed to bring it back to the rather irrelevant fact that I was an only child *Sunglasses emoji.*

Use your imaginations to inspire those of the next generation. Make them act, and keep them from becoming passive observers of the world. It all starts with sparking their creativity, so strike that match, and light the path of possibility that the active use of their creativity will create.