Raising Little Creative Geniuses

Go ahead, let the finger paints, glitter and glue fly! Raising creative children is worth it.

When your kids are little, it's hard to be the perfect parent. When your toddler colors on the bathroom walls you just paid $800 to have faux-painted, you know you should slap up some butcher paper, hand him Hot Magenta and tell him to keep going. But you're more likely to tear your hair out, rant, rave and otherwise stifle his creativity.

When my kids were little, I was so proud that I was raising creative kids. I let them play with Play-Doh all over the house. We brought sand in from the sandbox and made permanent sand castles. We made a homemade volcano and erupted it with vinegar and baking soda a kajillion times. We made paper mache and we painted Pinewood Derby cars.

But the day I found gobs and drips of bright green tempera paint on my new beige family room carpet, I threw a fit. My kids disappeared into their bedrooms, waiting for the storm to pass. Meanwhile I called the carpet stain hotline and was sobbing on the phone to the poor woman who answered.

I'll never forget what she said:

"Don't you dare say you won't ever let your kids paint in the house again! I'm going to tell you how to get that paint out of the carpet, and then you're going to forget this ever happened. Remember, your kids' art projects are more important than your carpet!"

She was so right! Who would have thought that a customer service rep for a carpet manufacturer could be so wise, so filled with perspective, so . . . Mom!

Our house didn't always look perfect, but my kids ended up to be pretty artistic. And we all have some fun memories from those early years. No one ever brings up my temper tantrum over the green paint!