A while ago, I read that the early years of our lives have a big role in molding our brains. I am not an educational expert, but my wife and I thought and decided that we should raise our children while fostering their creative mindset. Here is how we used Lego in achieving that.
Who Am I?
My name is Ahmad, and I am in my mid-thirties. My wife Enas and I are both software engineers, and we both graduated from Ain Shams University. We were blessed with two daughters: Noor, who is 8 years old and Sarah who is 5 years old.
When Noor turned 4, my wife and I agreed on fostering and building her creative mindset and personality. But that was very challenging.
The challenges we faced
At this age, there are various electronic devices, tablets, smart phones, and televised children programs that are very alluring. Many parents like ourselves hated how our children are hooked up on them. This made disposing them and their negative effects over children harder. But we couldn’t just overlook how they affected our children’s mental and physical health. Those devices turn kids into receivers eliminating any chances for developing a creative mindset. The more time kids spend on them, the more they lack interacting with the world around them. And the more they lose touch with their creative mindset.
What did we do to overcome those challenges?
The first step was to set a role model for our daughter, and cut down using smart electronic devices ourselves.
This is a basic parenting tip: you cannot stop you kids from doing something that you do yourself!
The next step was to find a proper alternative to nurture our daughter’s creative mindset. We started by focusing on what toys to choose. We chose a variety of toys which included:
– Dolls
– Chess
– Puzzles
– Blocks and bricks
– Suitable lego for her age
We found that the wider the variety of toys is, the better it is for a child’s mindset. Offering a child a wide range of toys helps them discover their talents and what fosters their creativity the most. As for Noor, she leaned most towards lego games.
What is Lego?
Lego is a building game, where a child is challenged to build a model with small cubes and bricks and a manual guide. What makes it different is that it challenges the child like no other toy. Plus you can build so many shapes and designs making the game almost endless. Lego is not just a building toy. It comes in different shapes, sizes, designs, and colors perfect for boys and girls of all age groups.
Playing with Lego can start from an early age and develop along with the child’s growth. It fosters children’s motor skills and physical strength, even some come in themes introducing the concept of STEM to children.
As I said earlier, it is an endless game. You can buy two different Lego sets, play with them separately, or mix and match them together to make a brand new design. I assure you, your child will never get bored!
Using Lego in developing a child’s creative mindset
My daughter started out with simple Lego designs, then improved into building up the same design again and again but faster and easier every time. We felt that it was time to raise the bar a little. So, we got her more challenging designs that were a little too advanced for her, but it was no issue. Noor was, and still is, so passionate about Lego that she never grew tired of them. We were so happy observing the development from simple shapes to complex designs. Now, she is 8 years old and able to build up and program electrical circuits and mechanical parts.
Lego as an investment
At this point, Lego has turned into an investment in my child’s future and creativity. More developed and complex Lego toys are more expensive. Therefore I started saving up at a rate where we bought a new Lego toy every 4 or 6 months. But buying Lego toys, even the expensive ones, is still less coasting than buying a smart electronic device.
Unfortunately, some parents find it a waste to buy Lego toys at such prices, even though they develop their children’s creative mindset. But they have no problem buying way more expensive electronics or other luxury items. My wife and I prioritize our child’s creativity and prefer spending money on developing it rather than on other luxuries no matter how tempting it was.
Lego expands a child’s mindset
The positive influence of Lego toys on my daughter Noor was amazing. You would always find her wondering about how planes fly and how cars move. I am proud to say that she is always one of the top 3 students in her school. It might not necessarily be Lego that achieved that, but I believe that it played a part.
It is not always Lego
This is not about the toy itself, but rather about what your child leans towards. For instance, my youngest, Sarah, is not as into Lego as her older sister. Sarah is more into chess and coloring. Enas and I agree that we are not dictating what interests or hobbies our kids should take. Neither will we urge them to major in something they don’t want – such ideas are extinct to us.
It is never just toys
As a parent, you should keep in mind that toys alone are not enough. As a parent you also have a role to play in fostering your child’s skills and creativity. At home, we divided tasks between myself and my wife as follows: I am responsible for creative activities like painting, playing, and trip. While my wife focuses more on following up with school and their education. In fact, my wife has the lion’s share of spending time with our girls.
We also encourage our girls to read. We are firm believers in the importance of reading. It started with us reading to them, and now they both have their own interests in books and reading. I always work on providing a variety of books, that is why I tend to buy used books to reduce the coast.
Eliminate computer games?
I am not a believer in eliminating anything. We live in an age of technology and computers are an important part of our children’s lives. What I believe in is setting boundaries and timelines. Two hours a week for computer games is good enough. More than that, your child might become impatient, tense, and enraged. You also don’t want your child to think that the world is controlled by a click of a button like computers.
Lego toys teach children more patience and responsibility because they take days and sometimes weeks to be finished. They also teach persistence and independence.
Finally,
I wanted to share this experience with other parents to let them know that it is easy to make your children happy and nurture their creative mindsets at the same time. My experience in doing so was with Lego, but you can find many other alternatives that do exactly the same. My advice is focus more on buying items that will enrich your child’s creative mindset, and trust me they will always be cheaper than buying electronics or smart phones. You can always search for experiments and projects to do at home as well.
