Reflections and Deconstructions of Creativity and Problem solving.

While I am surfing through the varying channels on the Peo TV, I confronted an advertisement selling an automated flying batman toy. The video depicted children who are amazed by the flying toy. But I asked myself, who wants to buy a toy like that. It was a matter that confused me until days later when I found my nephew playing or flying a very similar batman toy. I was intrigued. I asked him who bought the toy for him and he said it was one of his other uncles who bought it for him. I also asked him how did he enjoy the toy and he said he enjoyed vertically taking off or flying the toy very much.

A few months later I visited him for his birth day. There was a small gathering of relatives for his birthday and everyone had bought some kind of a toy for him. What amused me again the most was that almost all the gifts or toys presented to him were automated machines. There were no building blocks, no action figures or no stuffed dolls. It made me go back to my childhood when I would run to my neighbor’s place to play with my neighbor’s stack of building blocks or fiddle with action figures at home with my brother or myself acting as the nemesis of our imagined toy heroes. I also remember that I made buildings, cities, spaceships and uncountable number of fantastic things and played with them every evening. It was nostalgic, but I cannot return to that past now that I am an adult. What made the history even more striking is seeing my nephew not being chanced with a similar childhood; or a young life profuse with creativity.

Creativity is lost to the new generation of children in my opinion. My contention is that the new models of toys which are automated machines that follow a rigid computer program of execution does not kindle the creativity of children. The children on the other hand rely on the machines to evoke their amusement rather than creating their own. This is an improvident direction of children’s mentality in my opinion. The children should be presented with the opportunity to improve their own creativity and problem-solving skills via the immersion of their minds in their own fictional worlds.

While my belief is that creativity is induced by toys that demand imagining and fantasizing, I also feel compelled to deconstruct my opinion. When I reflect on my own life, to be critical, I feel that my own childhood and my fantastic engagement with toys made me an overthinker as well as a fatally idealistic person. It could also be that I played with toys too long or too much closer into my adolescent life or the age where you have to be creative in real life. This did not help me. I had various difficulties in my teen and adolescent life because of my overthinking which I am still learning to tackle and overcome. Therefore, it could also be argued that the playful and creativity inducing toys should be an object of life in the early years before adolescence rather than the later parts of childhood.

Furthermore, it can also be said that children improve their creativity skills and alternate thinking abilities in spite of toys. But this requires an adequate opportunity of freedom in action and the nature of being social. By adequate opportunity of freedom, I mean the allowance of a child within a family and outside a family to make choices as well as mistakes. To take an example from my own experience, I had less freedom in my house with regards to choices I made. My mother supervised every action I and my brother made within the house. Therefore, my family background did not help me to improve practical creativity and problem-solving skills. On the other hand, sociability is another important factor in improving practical creativity. Knowing the hows and whats of the society is extremely important for the evolution of practical creativity and social problem solving. Sadly, I was not a very social being for the most part of my adolescence. This situation made it quite hard for me to be witty in the department of social life right into my adult life.

Now, as an adult I am still learning to be a good social being with creativity and practicality. Although it is astounding to see others of my age are performing so fluidly in social sphere, my intention to be social and practical is further strengthened by the existence of my colleague’s vivacity.