3 Ways To Create a Home Environment For Innovative Kids

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Having a home environment that inspires innovation and creativity doesn’t mean that you have test tubes and robot parts scattered across your floor. Although, if that’s your thing, go for it. All it means is that the pieces are in place for your child to access the prefrontal cortex that is responsible for creative thinking.

Read 5 Reasons Why You Should Raise Your Kid to be Innovative

Simplify Your Home

When we have a simplified home that isn’t full of clutter and is well organized, our kids can get to their toys easier and play independently better. It’s also easier to clean everything up!

Read How to Get Your Kid to Play Independently

Being a minimalist (sorta) can really help. This doesn’t mean you have to get rid of all your material things, but work really hard to keep the items your family uses accessible and the rest out of the way. Here’s how:

Above is a simple breakdown of how to get started. To really dive in, I recommend the book, “SImplicity Parenting” by Payne. 

Simplify Your Life

Maybe I am blogging about minimalism, but there is quite a bit of research that supports that less is more. When we are overscheduled, overstimulated, and stressed out, we cannot access the most creative parts of our brain – so why would our kids be able to?

Keep your life simple. Limit how many extracurriculars you have going at a time. Learn to enjoy the simple activities that you can do in your living room or backyard. Give your kids plenty of time to be bored. Boredom is the number one innovation catalyzer. When kids get bored, they get creative. Unless they don’t have access to the train tracks or cardboard boxes. 

Be intentional of the media that comes into your home

Some of the stuff that comes out these days is just not great. It limits our ability to think, reduces our attention span, and has more influence over our children’s lives than I think we would care to realize. Limiting screen time induces boredom which is the kindling for the fire of innovation you are trying to set. 

Teach Intrinsic Values Over Rules

Rules can support values we want our kids to adopt, but it’s important they have their own value system, and that they follow it over a rule. Sometimes rules clash with our values. When this happens, we want our kids to follow their value system, that we hope is good and strong. Here’s a good way to implement values over rules.

1. Take the time to explain the reason for the rule

The only major difference between the parents of Germans who hid the jews, and those who did not, was that the parents of the Germans who followed their values rather than the rules spent more time explaining why we do or do not do certain things when they were children.*

*This example comes from the book Originals by Adam Grant. It’s another read I highly recommend.

2. Keep rules to a minimum

Rules are helpful to setting expectations, but they’ll only get you so far. Adam Grant cites a study in his book about the number of rules in homes of ordinary children and highly creative children.

“In one study, parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of less than one rule and tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules,” psychologist Teresa Amabile reports.”
– Adam M. Grant, Originals: How Nonconformists Move the World

3. Emphasize Values With Memorable Lessons

In the book, “The Entitlement Trap” by Richard and Linda Eyre, they teach the importance of instilling values. They do this through having a value of the month that is on repeat for the year. Each value comes with different lessons and concepts that they reiterate throughout the month. 

Breaking it down to just one value focus a month makes it easier to teach, and for your child to understand. You may help someone pick up the groceries they dropped and then turn to your child and help them understand that when someone drops something, it’s kind to help them pick it up. 

4. Have family meetings

This is another tip from the Entitlement Trap. Regular family meetings that help you plan your week, let kids air frustrations, and teach a lesson around the monthly value can create an environment that helps build intrinsic values to be your child’s leading compass. 

An example of a lesson that could be taught is about Whales. In the book, it explains that whales sing to each other but they never interrupt. Later, when your child interrupts you can remind them of this lesson simply by saying, “Whales.” 

If you do these 4 things, you can rest assured that your kids are growing up with good moral compasses. 

Simplify Your Expectations

If you expect complete calm every moment of every day, or for your children to play beautifully between themselves for hours upon end days at a time, then you are going to be disappointed. Raising innovative kids is a long-term strategy. It takes time to work out the kinks and find a rhythm that works for you and your family.

Once that rhythm is figured out, something in your life will change and you’ll have to do more troubleshooting. Remember to keep things simple, stay consistent in providing opportunities for your child to be creative, and over time your kids will grow up being critical thinkers, visionary leaders, and thoughtful world-changers.

Conclusion

Creating an intentional home environment is one of the best steps you can take to improve your day-to-day. In this article, I covered how to simplify your home, your life, and your expectations. Remember, change doesn’t happen overnight. Take your time in implementing this advice and figure out what works for your family.