How can we help children solve their problems?

A small study, published recently in the Journal of Creativity, and reported by Jeff Grabmeier of the Ohio State University, suggests that teaching children creative skills may help them become more resilient in the face of real-life problems.

The study involved teaching children in Grades 3, 4 and 5 to use literary techniques such as perspective shifting (i.e. seeing the situation from a different point of view), counter-factual (‘what if?’) and causal (‘why?’) thinking. These helped the children come up with new, creative and practical ways to solve problems.

To help shift perspective, the children were told to think of a friend (their ‘creative friend’) who could help them solve any problem. When looking at a problem through the eyes of someone else, we tend to become more creative and can think of more effective solutions to problems than when we try to solve the problem ourselves.

Results showed that without the perspective-shift training, fewer than half of the children were able to provide a solution to some age-typical problems and almost none were able to provide a solution to their own problems.

But 94% of those who were trained in perspective-shifting provided a solution to both.

In addition to perspective-shifting, the children were also trained in other narrative creativity techniques, such as causal thinking. Angus Fletcher, who led the study, writes that “If children can’t solve a problem, we train them to back up and think about what they are trying to accomplish—the why problem”.

“Step back and say why does this matter? We often find that if you think more broadly about what you are trying to accomplish, and why it is so important, then you can see there are other ways of getting what you want.”

At the end of the training, results showed that children were able to propose solutions to age-typical as well as their own problems. To test resilience, the researchers provided an unexpected challenge when the children were told that their solutions wouldn’t work. In response, every child who had undergone the training were able to come up with a second plan. This was taken as a good test of resilience.

Fletcher said this study provides a hopeful message: There are things we can do to help children cope with their problems. He believes that they can learn creativity through the arts, such as literature and theatre, if they are done the right way. Rather than just asking learners to analyse works of art, teachers can have them imagine themselves as different characters, explore new perspectives and engage in why and what-if thinking.

“The ability to use this type of thinking can’t be assessed via standardized tests. But it is still very important and can help children use and grow their creativity to solve real-world challenges,” he said.

More information: Angus Fletcher et al, Narrative creativity training: A new method for increasing resilience in elementary students, Journal of Creativity (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100061

Image supplied by Freepik

← Previous Next →

Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.