This document discusses how overparenting and an overemphasis on success can inhibit creativity in children by preventing them from learning how to deal with failure. It provides strategies for parents and teachers to foster creativity, such as emphasizing process over product, allowing play, and praising effort rather than just success. Creativity is defined as a type of problem-solving for which there are no easy answers, and involves flexibility and adaptability of thought. Fear of failure, an excessive focus on order and tradition, overcertainty, reluctance to play, and excessive reward for success are identified as potential roadblocks to creativity.

1. Lawnmowers and Helicopters: How
Parents and Teachers Can Prevent The
Failure-Creativity Link
Dr. Elizabeth Fogarty
fogartye@ecu.edu
www.lizfogarty.weebly.co
m
Suzanne Dixon
dixonsu@k12.pitt.nc.us
NAGC 2014

2. What outcomes would you
like to see for your children
as a result of their
education?

3. A major IBM study of more than
1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and
33 industries in 2010 found that the
single most sought-after trait in a
CEO is CREATIVITY.

9. OVERPARENTING:
Parents’ “misguided attempt to improve
their child’s current and future personal
and academic success”
*See interesting article in
The Atlantic

10. PARENTAL RESPONSIVENESS =
Amount that the parent responds to the child’s
needs
PARENTAL DEMANDINGNESS =
Parent’s tendency to have rules and demand
responsible and mature behavior

11. PARENTAL RESPONSIVENESS
Isn’t
good?

12. “hovering closely overhead,
rarely out of reach, whether
their children need them or
not”

13. Parent can have difficulty accepting a child’s failures, so
parent steps in to help child achieve
PROBLEM: child may fail to develop autonomous
motivation in academic settings, perceived ability to effect
change in life, & sense of wellbeing, may cause separation
anxiety or reduced self-efficacy
CONTROL
VS.
SUPPORTING
AUTONOMY

14. PARENTAL DEMANDINGNESS
Isn’t
bad?

15. “attempting to
smooth out and
mow down all
obstacles in the
way of the
child’s success”

16. Parents have a reduced expectation of the child’s ability to
do the task or may expect others to compensate for them
PROBLEM:
May cause anxiety in children

17. OVERPARENTING CAN CAUSE:
• Reduced child resilience
• Sense of entitlement
• Child anxiety
• Reduced life skills
• Inadequate sense of responsibility or
self-efficacy in children

18. OVERPARENTING CAN CAUSE:
• Exhaustion
• Stress
• Guilt
• Anxiety
in mothers/fathers

19. HAVE YOU EVER FAILED?
THINK TO YOURSELF:
1. What was your biggest failure ever?
2. What did you learn from it?

20. Failure – Creativity Link
What really matters is that children
learn HOW to deal with failure – an
evitable part of life.
Enhancing children’s creativity is a
GREAT way to do this.

21. Mindset
• Fixed mindset – believing
that something like
intelligence or creativity is
an inborn trait
• Growth mindset – believing
that intelligence or
creativity can be developed
over time.
Carol Dweck

22. A Definition
• Creativity is essentially a form of problem-
solving. But it is a special type of problem-
solving--one that involves problems for
which there are no easy answers: that is,
problems for which popular or
conventional responses do not work.
Creativity involves adaptability and
flexibility of thought.
From NAGC Position Paper “Creativity
in Young Children” by James Moran

23. 5 Roadblocks to Creativity
1. Fear of Failure
success and failure go hand in hand,
one seldom has the former without the
latter.

28. Walt Disney
The father of Mickey Mouse and the enchanted Disney empire was
fired from a Missouri newspaper for not being creative enough.

30. Emphasize Process over
Product
• When talking about an assignment, for
instance, discuss what HOW the child
learned what she learned, not just HOW
MUCH or HOW WELL she learned it.
• In a piece of art, discuss HOW he created it,
not just the resulting picture.
**Knowing something will be evaluated can
hinder creativity.

31. 5 Roadblocks to Creativity
1. Fear of Failure
2. Preoccupation with Order and Tradition
when innovation is common, messiness is
usually a by-product.

36. 5 Roadblocks to Creativity
1. Fear of Failure
2. Preoccupation with Order and Tradition
3. Overcertainty
success can breed rigidity.

37. Be Careful of
“Right Answer Fixation”
Emphasize divergent thinking – not just
convergent thinking. Sometimes it’s important
to have the right answer, but sometimes there
is not ONE right answer.
** PISA results – Finland
No mandated standardized tests in Finland
except for the exit exam at the end of high
school

38. 5 Roadblocks to Creativity
1. Fear of Failure
2. Preoccupation with Order and Tradition
3. Overcertainty
4. Reluctance to Play
play is characterized by high energy and activity,
and it is often unpredictable, which are attributes
of creative individuals’ behavior.

40. American Academy of
Pediatrics recommends
that children play
outside as much as
possible—for at least 60
minutes a day.
study findings reported in the
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent
Medicine
PLAY is Important

41. 5 Roadblocks to Creativity
1. Fear of Failure
2. Preoccupation with Order and Tradition
3. Overcertainty
4. Reluctance to Play
5. Excessive Reward for Success
low stakes produce high success or reward is
given when unnecessary.

42. Incentivising Creativity
• Rewards interfere with creativity
since creative children are usually
motivated internally, not externally
• Reduce children’s ability to shift from one
category to another (any external
constraint will reduce this flexibility)

43. Mindset
• Praising students for the process they
have engaged in (effort, strategies used,
choices made, persistence displayed)
yields more long-term benefits. (Dweck)
• Emphasize Challenge, Not “Success”

46. SCAMPER
• Substitute
• Combine
• Adapt
• Modify
• Put to other uses
• Eliminate
• Reverse

47. Resources
CNN. (2013). What Finland can teach America about education. Retrieved from:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/03/what-finland-can-teach-
america-about-education/
Gowdy, T. A. (2013, October). Inspiring creativity. Parents magazine.
Lahey, J. (2013, January 29) Why Parents Need to Let Their Children Fail. The
Atlantic. Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-
parents-need-to-let-their-children-fail/272603/
Locke, J., Campbell, M. A., & Kavanagh, D. J. (2012). Can a parent do too much for
their child? An examination by parenting professionals of the concept of
overparenting. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 22(2), 249-265.
NAGC. Creativity in Young Children. Retrieved from:
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=326