5 Ways Grown-Ups Squelch Kids' Creativity

Building Blocks of Creativity

Where does creativity come from? And at what age does it go from plain 'ol being silly to actually becoming the driving force behind astounding, inventive ideas?

Actor Matthew Broderick touts basic wooden blocks as being the foundation of his own creativity, which he now culls on-screen and on-stage. As a kid in a Manhattan private school, there were no toy cars or train sets -- only blocks. "The idea that you could make toys yourself and not having ones already designed [for you] was a very profound thing," he says.

As a dad himself to young son James (who now goes to his father's alma mater), Broderick relishes the unstructured time the two of them spend getting creative together. Whether it's building and knocking down towers or just "lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling," Broderick is serious about helping his son get his creative wheels turning -- on James' terms. "I like to let him decide what we use that time for," Broderick says.

Time for Creating -- and Dreaming

But how do non-Broadway types set their family's creative motors to zoom? A company synonymous with kids' exploratory endeavors, LEGO, is offering one idea: Take an hour every day to play -- without expectations or ground rules. Kids need parents to back up their efforts to imagine and embrace discovery; parents could use a little time to just wonder, themselves.

It seems fitting that LEGO, a company whose name appropriately means "play well" in Danish, would sponsor such an initiative. But what happens when parents' best intentions of working their child's brain gets out of control? Check out these top mistakes parents make that actually burn out -- not boost, as they might hope -- kids' creativity.