* Empowering the Children in Your Life to Indulge Their Creativity
By Rose Gonska
The best writers are avid readers. My son, Roman, started reading at 4 years old, and his love for it grew quickly. By age 6, he was reading entire book series. And to this day, his love for reading continues.
To meet the demands of his insatiable habit, I take him to the local library once every other week where we grab 20-30 books at a time. He reads through them quickly, and he always returns to the library with a desire to read even more.
When you’re a busy parent, it can be difficult to make time for your child’s passions. You may be wondering – when does Roman read? Most of the time, he reads in the evening before bed and on the weekend. Sometimes, if he is especially engrossed by a story, he’ll read during meals.
When Roman was 8 years old, I showed him some characters I had bought from a designer in New York City in 2014. I was planning on putting them on some boys’ suits I was designing and then selling the suits to boutique stores around the country. Unfortunately, this idea never panned out, and the characters were left behind.
When Roman saw these characters – Matt the Monkey, Jerry the Giraffe, Rob the Robot, and himself, Roman German – he was so fascinated that he immediately exclaimed, “Why don’t we write a book, Mom?!”
I’ll tell you what I told him: English is my second language, and I am clueless when it comes to writing children’s books and bringing characters to life on the page. However, I am a mom leader, and as such I strive to raise, empower, and encourage my children to be all that they can be. So, I said Yes! I told him, “You bring these characters to life, and I will help you publish your book!”
Helping guide my son through this process taught me a lot of things about raising a writer. One of the most important things that creative people need is accountability. Ideas can come easily, but accountability and self-discipline are what get the job done. Without it, creative people don’t always stick to their goals.
I approached it like this: “Okay, Roman. So, you want to write this book. How about we schedule some time for your writing? Let’s set aside an hour every Tuesday and Wednesday evening, and we’ll see where we are in 3 months.”
Within 6 months, Roman had put together plans for each character’s personality and the fun adventures they were going to have! Of course, Roman was only 8 years old at the time, so we still needed help editing the book. But if Roman hadn’t followed his writing schedule that we created, we wouldn’t have had anything worth editing at all.
If you want to raise a writer, focus on helping him or her follow a writing schedule. Decide on a specific time frame for your “special writing time” and stick to it.
Lastly, make sure that you have a set deadline. It’s important for your creative kiddos to know that there’s a time limit for every project. If you stick to that, the project can (and will) be done!
So, you know how to encourage your child to write. But now you have to challenge your child to think about others and discover the why behind the what. Now, you’ll begin to ask your writer about why someone should read their books? Encouraging your little writer to think about these things will help them write with excellence because they will be focused on creating something that people will want to read.
Once you do that, you’ll be well on your way to raising a writer. Continue to encourage and empower your creative kiddos, and you’ll be amazed at what they can do. Thank you for reading!