Young children are naturally curious, and will engage with and explore materials in their environment.
Studies have shown that children learn to think divergently and develop creativity by watching other people around them. Children are very good imitators from their first year on,1- Hilbrink, E. E., Sakkalou, E., Ellis-Davies, K., Fowler, N. C., & Gattis, M. (2013). Selective and faithful imitation at 12 and 15 months. Developmental Science, 16(6), 828-840. doi: 10.1111/desc.12070
and parents are one group of people they can imitate in everyday life.
In a series of experiments, adult experimenters modelled to young children ways to play with a specially designed toy, called "The Unusual Box Test", which measures divergent thinking.2- Hoicka, E., Mowat, R., Kirkwood, J., Kerr, T., Carberry, M., & Bijvoet, van den B. S. (2016). One-Year-Olds Think Creatively, Just Like Their Parents. Child Development, 87(4), 1099–1105. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12531
The experiments found that two-year-olds who watched an experimenter model a high level of divergent thinking by playing with the toy in various ways, produced higher levels of divergent thinking than those who saw the experimenter model non-divergent thinking.2- Hoicka, E., Mowat, R., Kirkwood, J., Kerr, T., Carberry, M., & Bijvoet, van den B. S. (2016). One-Year-Olds Think Creatively, Just Like Their Parents. Child Development, 87(4), 1099–1105. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12531
Another series of experiments by the same researchers carried out on one-year-olds also showed that they displayed divergent thinking. Additionally, children with better divergent thinking were correlated to parents who modelled more divergent thinking themselves.2- Hoicka, E., Mowat, R., Kirkwood, J., Kerr, T., Carberry, M., & Bijvoet, van den B. S. (2016). One-Year-Olds Think Creatively, Just Like Their Parents. Child Development, 87(4), 1099–1105. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12531
Read more at AL-CRE-C02.
