7 Principles of Creative Thinking

1. You Are Creative

Artists are not special, but each of us is a special kind of artist who enters the world as a creative and spontaneous thinker. While creative people believe they are creative, those who don’t hold that belief are not. After acquiring beliefs about their identity, creative people become interested in expressing themselves, so they learn thinking habits and techniques that creative geniuses have used throughout history.

2. Creative Thinking Is Work

You must show passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of developing new and different ideas. The next step is patience and perseverance. All creative geniuses work with intensity and produce an incredible number of ideas — most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems were written by major poets than by minor poets. Thomas Edison generated 3,000 different lighting system ideas before he evaluated them for practicality and profitability.

3. You Must Go Through the Motions

When producing ideas, you replenish neurotransmitters linked to genes that are being turned on and off in response to challenges. Going through the motions of generating new ideas increases the number of contacts between neurons, and thereby energizes the brain. Every hour spent activating your mind by generating ideas increases creativity. By painting a picture every day, you would become an artist — perhaps not Van Gogh, but more of an artist than someone who has never tried.

4. Your Brain Is Not a Computer

Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves patterns of activity, rather than simply processing them like a computer. The brain thrives on creative energy that results from experiences, real or fictional. The brain cannot tell the difference between an “actual” experience and one that is imagined vividly and in detail. Both are energizing. This principle helped Walt Disney bring his fantasies to life and also enabled Albert Einstein to engage in thought experiments that led to revolutionary ideas about space and time. For example, Einstein imagined falling in love and then meeting the woman he fell in love with two weeks later. This led to his theory of acausality.

5. There Is No Right Answer

Aristotle believed that things were either “A” or “not A.” To him the sky was blue or not blue — never both. Such dualistic thinking is limiting. After all, the sky is a billion different shades of blue. We used to think that a beam of light existed only as a wave until physicists discovered that light can be either a wave or a particle, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. The only certainty in life is uncertainty. Therefore when trying to produce new ideas, do not evaluate them as they occur. Nothing kills creativity faster than self-censorship during idea generation. All ideas are possibilities — generate as many as you can before identifying which ones have more merit. The world is not black or white. It is gray.

6. There Is No Such Thing as Failure

Trying something without succeeding is not failing. It’s producing a result. What you do with the result — that is, what you’ve learned — is the important thing. Whenever your efforts have produced something that doesn’t work, ask the following:

• What have I learned about what doesn’t work?
• Can this explain something that I didn’t set out to explain?
• What have I discovered that I didn’t set out to discover?

People who “never” make mistakes have never tried anything new. Noting that Thomas Edison had “failed” to successfully create a filament for the light bulb after 10,000 attempts, an assistant asked why the inventor didn’t give up. Edison didn’t accept what the assistant meant by failure. “I have discovered ten thousand things that don’t work,” he explained.

7. You Don’t See Things as They Are – You See Them as You Are

All experiences are neutral and without inherent meaning until your interpretations give them meaning. Priests see evidence of God everywhere, while atheists see the absence of God everywhere. Back when nobody in the world owned a personal computer, IBM’s market research experts speculated that there were no more than six people on earth who needed a PC. While IBM saw no market potential for PCs, two college dropouts named Bill Gates and Steve Jobs viewed the same data as IBM and perceived massive opportunity. You construct reality by how you choose to interpret your experiences.

Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement

Previous research has established that when teachers are anxious about math, their students learn less math during the school year. The current study is the first to establish a link between parents’ and children’s math anxiety. These findings suggest that adults’ attitudes toward math can play an important role in children’s math achievement.

“We often don’t think about how important parents’ own attitudes are in determining their children’s academic achievement. But our work suggests that if a parent is walking around saying ‘Oh, I don’t like math’ or ‘This stuff makes me nervous,’ kids pick up on this messaging and it affects their success,” explained Beilock, professor in psychology.  “Math-anxious parents may be less effective in explaining math concepts to children, and may not respond well when children make a mistake or solve a problem in a novel way,” added Levine, the Rebecca Anne Boylan Professor of Education and Society in Psychology.

Four hundred and thirty-eight (n=438) first- and second-grade students and their primary caregivers participated in the study. Children were assessed in math achievement and math anxiety at both the beginning and end of the school year. As a control, the team also assessed reading achievement, which they found was not related to parents’ math anxiety.

Parents completed a questionnaire about their own nervousness and anxiety around math and how often they helped their children with math homework.  The researchers believe the link between parents’ math anxiety and children’s math performance stems more from math attitudes than genetics.

“Although it is possible that there is a genetic component to math anxiety,” the researchers wrote, “the fact that parents’ math anxiety negatively affected children only when they frequently helped them with math homework points to the need for interventions focused on both decreasing parents’ math anxiety and scaffolding their skills in homework help.”

Maloney said the study suggests that parent preparation is essential to effective math homework help. “We can’t just tell parents — especially those who are anxious about math — ‘Get involved,'” Maloney explained. “We need to develop better tools to teach parents how to most effectively help their children with math.”

A. Maloney, G. Ramirez, E. A. Gunderson, S. C. Levine, S. L. Beilock. Intergenerational Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement and Anxiety.Psychological Science, 2015

“They Always Thought You Were Smarter!”

The study, published Friday in the Journal of Family Psychology, focused on siblings and academic achievement. Jensen and co-author Susan McHale from Penn State looked at 388 teenage first- and second-born siblings and their parents from 17 school districts in a northeastern state. The researchers asked the parents which sibling was better in school.

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Hovering or Loving?

New research by professors at Brigham Young University revealed that parental warmth cannot neutralize the consequences of helicopter parenting. Additionally, a lack of warmth makes the negative effects worse.  Such negative effects include lower self-worth and higher risk behavior, such as binge drinking.

The study, published in Emerging Adulthood, is a follow-up to 2012 research on helicopter parenting that found the children of helicopter parents are less engaged in school. Now they’ve found that helicopter parenting combined with an absence of parental warmth is especially detrimental to young adults’ well-being.

Researchers defined helicopter parenting as parents’ over-involvement in the lives of their children. This includes making important decisions for them, solving their problems and intervening in their children’s conflicts. Warmth is measured by parental availability to talk and spend time together.

Nelson and Padilla-Walker examined data from 438 undergraduate students in four universities nationwide (not including Brigham Young University). The students self-reported on their parents’ controlling behavior and warmth, then on their own self-esteem, risk behaviors and academics.

Results showed that the lack of warmth intensifies both the decrease in self-worth and increase in risk behaviors in the young-adult children of helicopter parents. High levels of parental warmth reduced the negative effects, but did not eliminate them completely.  The findings suggest that loving parents can’t justify their helicoptering tendencies; too much control is too much, no matter the parents’ affection and support.

“Overall, stepping in and doing for a child what the child developmentally should be doing for him or herself, is negative,” Nelson said. “Regardless of the form of control, it’s harmful at this time period.” The authors note that helicopter parenting is relatively uncommon and not as damaging as forms of control that are harsh, punitive or manipulative.

Nelson warned that helicopter parents shouldn’t overcompensate by removing themselves completely from their children’s lives. Young adults deserve more autonomy, but still need parental support.  “Lack of control does not mean lack of involvement, warmth and support,” Nelson said.

J. Nelson, L. M. Padilla-Walker, M. G. Nielson.Is Hovering Smothering or Loving? An Examination of Parental Warmth as a Moderator of Relations Between Helicopter Parenting and Emerging Adults’ Indices of Adjustment.Emerging Adulthood, 2015

Can-Colleges-Prove-That-a-Degree-is-Worth-the-Cost

The survey, completed by some 800 vice presidents, deans, and directors at two-year and four year
colleges, focused on their attitudes about the value of their degrees, strategies to measure the
outcomes of their graduates, and what skills higher education should provide to students. Among
the highlights from the survey:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/263519812/Can-Colleges-Prove-That-a-Degree-is-Worth-the-Cost

“So this is what normal feels like.”

(Reames, 2015)

THE NEW ME

After half a lifetime of struggling at home and at work and dreading each new day, I feel as though a new me has been born with my adult ADD diagnosis.

I’m sitting in the tiny nurses’ station, staring at neat piles of completed paperwork. It’s only 1:30 a.m. and I’m done already. Work that used to have me scrambling to finish before the day-shift nurse came in at 7 a.m. is finished. Not just finished: done right, with a clear focus.

I smile, leaning back in my chair. “So this is what ‘normal’ feels like,” I think, amazed.

All my life, I had struggled with a vague sense that something was different about me. I felt inferior, inadequate, undisciplined, and hopelessly disorganized — all feelings that have been, at one time or another, reinforced by others in my life.

“Donna, can’t you ever be on time?”

“I couldn’t live in this clutter.”

“How can you not know where your daughters’ birth certificates are?”

“Maybe you’re just one of those people who can’t stay organized.”

I had gotten used to feeling tired before I even got out of bed, of dreading the new day and its various obligations. I was exhausted, struggling at work and at home with my kids. It took every ounce of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength to live my life — until I finally met someone who listened to my story and gave me a chance to do something about it.  He didn’t hand me a planner or a book on organization. He didn’t lecture me on slothfulness or give me parenting advice. He handed me a prescription AND suggested that I talk with someone about making changes in my life.

“Take this and see what happens,” he said. “I think you have adult ADD.” He was the first person ever to believe me when I said that there was something wrong beyond depression or a fundamentally disorganized personality.   I had always sensed that there was a part of me that could be structured, that could be organized, and that could function with ease. I just didn’t know  how to access it.

A NEW MOM

As we pulled into a gas station the other day, another car pulled in front of us. The driver was shouting and cursing. At the station, I walked over to her. “Hey, I’m sorry if I irritated you,” I said. “I’m taking my kids to school, we were talking, and maybe I didn’t give you enough space.”

The woman calmed down noticeably and shook her head. “No, it’s my fault,” she said. “I’m tired this morning and I got mad. Don’t worry about it.” As I got back in our car, my oldest daughter, Zoë, stared at me, eyes wide open.

“Mama,” she said eagerly, “I can’t believe how nice you were!” (How embarrassing to realize what a jerk your kids thought you were, in the throes of daily ADD-related irritability.) I grinned. “You’ve got a new mama, girls!” I said as we continued on our way.

In the past, a situation like that would have caused me to erupt. I’d fuss and fume and blare my horn. I used to think I had a problem with anger. Now I know that my nerves were just stretched to their limits, and things that rolled off other peoples’ backs were intolerable to me.

Our life has slowed down at home. We eat in more often, and my girls actually enjoy my cooking. I’m not trying to do 15 other things while making dinner anymore, so I don’t end up burning it. I’ve also come up with my own system to organize my cabinets — and it works!

Because I now understand that I have a disorder that requires me to do things a little differently, I do them without feeling that I’m stupid or lazy. What I’ve discovered about myself is just the opposite: I can be highly organized and disciplined if I let myself be.  My medicine has calmed something down inside of me, allowed me to take a deep breath and live at a slower pace.

I CAN DO THIS!

I actually enjoy being a mother for the first time in 11 years of motherhood. Don’t get me wrong: I love my girls and am totally committed to them. But I used to wonder why my daily interactions with them left me so frustrated. By the time they went to bed, I was often near tears.

Life was hard that way for 44 years. When I look at old photos of myself, I’m shocked: I look drained and pinched, even when I was smiling for the camera. I never used to have fun, even on vacations. The simple act of packing for trips used to depress me.

But since I’ve been treated for ADD”, I’m surprised over and over by how easy life can be. It’s no big deal to a non-ADDer to help a second-grader read for 15 minutes every night, or to sit through an entire movie without getting up five times to “check on something. But for me, it’s a different world, and I love it!

The only thing that bothers me about adult ADD is that so many people — even doctors — still think it’s a myth.  Years ago, I actually suggested to a doctor that I might have it, but I was told that if I had done well in elementary school, there was no way that I could. I was never hyper or aggressive or disruptive at school, but I cried in my bedroom nearly every night because each tiny decision felt like a giant hurdle. Deciding how to put my hair up could leave me in tears.

Since I’ve been diagnosed, I have the same responsibilities as before. I’m still a single mom working full-time to support three daughters. I still live paycheck to paycheck, drive my same old station wagon, and, sometimes, I still get frustrated when things don’t go my way. The difference is that nothing seems overwhelming anymore. If the car breaks down, I can handle it. Without hysteria. If the money’s short, I figure out how to get by.  Without breaking down. Things don’t have to be black or white any more. I’ve learned to see and live with gray.

Come to my house for a cup of coffee, hot chocolate, or tea; I’ll know where the cups, spoons, tea bags, and cocoa are. You can sit in a chair that does not have piles of laundry on it, waiting to be put away. You can talk to me and I will listen, instead of chattering non-stop about myself. And while you’re talking, I won’t jump up to take care of something I forgot to do earlier. Mostly, I’ll have fun being with

you, which means you’ll have fun too.  My life works for me now, instead of me having to work for my life. And that’s worth the world to me.

Video Games & 21st Century Learning

Gaming is a growing trend in the 21st century learning paradigm and you don’t need to look hard to see the evidence. Digital and video games  take up a big part of the lives of our digital natives, and of course, as is the case with every ‘new technology’ doubtful and cynical voices are the first to be heard.

The advantages of digital and video gaming, appear to greatly outweigh their disadvantages. If you doubt it, here is a set of some really wonderful books that shed more light on the importance of video games and how they help kids in their learning.

“Stay Weird, Stay Different!”

Graham Moore Gives The Oscars’ Most Moving Acceptance Speech

“I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” – Maybe NOT!

While cool teens are often idolized in popular media — in depictions ranging from James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause to Tina Fey’s Mean Girls — seeking popularity and attention by trying to act older than one’s age may not yield the expected benefits, according to the study.

Researchers followed 184 teens from age 13, when they were in seventh and eighth grades, to age 23, collecting information from the teens themselves as well as from their peers and parents. The teens attended public school in suburban and urban areas in the southeastern United States and were from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Teens who were romantically involved at an early age, engaged in delinquent activity, and placed a premium on hanging out with physically attractive peers were thought to be popular by their peers at age 13. But over time, this sentiment faded: By 22, those once-cool teens were rated by their peers as being less competent in managing social relationships. They were also more likely to have had significant problems with alcohol and drugs, and to have engaged in criminal activities, according to the study.

“It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behavior might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviors to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens,” says Joseph P. Allen, Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study. “So they became involved in more serious criminal behavior and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed. These previously cool teens appeared less competent — socially and otherwise — than their less cool peers by the time they reached young adulthood.”

Joseph P. Allen, Megan M. Schad, Barbara Oudekerk, Joanna Chango. What Ever Happened to the “Cool” Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior. Child Development, 2014

STRESSED KIDS – What Do They Do?

We asked kids to tell us what things cause them the most stress. Kids said that they were stressed out the most by: grades, school, and homework (36%); family (32%); and friends, peers, gossip, and teasing (21%).

These are the coping strategies kids said they use the most (they could give more than one response):

• 52% play or do something active
• 44% listen to music
• 42% watch TV or play a video game
• 30% talk to a friend
• 29% try not to think about it
• 28% try to work things out
• 26% eat something
• 23% lose their temper
• 22% talk to a parent
• 11% cry

About 25% of the kids we surveyed said that when they are upset, they take it out on themselves, either by banging their heads against something, hitting or biting themselves, or doing something else to hurt themselves. These kids also were more likely to have other unhealthy coping strategies, such as eating, losing their tempers, and keeping problems to themselves.

The idea that kids would do things to try to harm themselves may be shocking to parents. But for some kids, feelings of stress, frustration, helplessness, hurt, or anger can be overwhelming. And without a way to express or release the feelings, a kid may feel like a volcano ready to erupt — or at least let off steam.

Sometimes, kids blame themselves when things go wrong. They might feel ashamed, embarrassed, or angry at themselves for the role they played in the situation. Hurting themselves may be a way to express the stress and blame themselves at the same time.

The poll also revealed important news for parents. Though talking to parents ranked eighth on the list of most popular coping methods, 75% of the kids surveyed said they want and need their parents’ help in times of trouble. When they’re stressed, they’d like their parents to talk with them, help them solve the problem, try to cheer them up, or just spend time together.

About the Poll

The national KidsPoll surveyed 875 9- to 13-year-old boys and girls regarding how they coped with stress. The KidsPoll is a collaboration of the Nemours Foundation/KidsHealth, the Department of Health Education and Recreation at Southern Illinois University — Carbondale, the National Association of Health Education Centers (NAHEC), and participating health education centers throughout the United States.