Innovation Cafe with Gary Shuster, patent litigator and prolific inventor.
Transcript
Hey there. I’m Gary Schuster, your friendly neighborhood inventor. And welcome back to Innovation Cafe. Today we are going to dive into the top ten parenting Mistakes you Need to avoid in order to have creative, happy, healthy, inventive children. Now, if we’re not careful, these mistakes can stifle the natural, creative genius the kids have. Let’s not do that. So let’s jump in. First, don’t over schedule your kids lives. We all want our kids to have the best opportunities, but don’t overdo it. Remember, there’s school, sports, music lessons, tutoring. We don’t leave time for the most important activity the kids can do, which is creative, unstructured play, creative, unstructured exploration where kids learn to imagine, invent, explore.
So let’s give them space to daydream and create. Mistake two do not punish mistakes. Maybe some mistakes that are really dangerous. You got to have consequences for. But remember, a mistake is just a form of failure. And if you know anything from watching this channel, you know that failure is the key to success as an inventor and an innovator. Kids are naturally inclined to take risks. They’re naturally inclined to try new things. And a natural consequence of that is that they’re going to fail. Sometimes they’re going to mess it up. Don’t make them afraid to try again.
Creativity thrives where it’s okay to fail. So instead of punishing them, encourage them. Here’s a really good analogy. Remember when your kids were first learning to walk and they would fall down? They’d look at you so far and they’re like, and they’re looking at you for a sign. You can go one of two ways. You could say, oh, no, are you hurt? That look so painful? And you’re guaranteed that they’re going to cry and probably not try that thing again. Or you can go, oh, man, you’re making such great progress walking. So one little, one little fall.
Not a big deal. Let’s get back up and we’ll do it again. Better. And even if they’re hurting, they’re probably going to push those tears back and go. I’m going to fix this. I am going to figure out how to do it. So remember, you’re their model. They’re looking to you for signals, signal that failure is okay as long as you use it as a step on the road to success. Here’s a third mistake. Don’t over focus on results. Focus on the creative journey to get there. You don’t need specific grades or trophies or achievements or standardized test scores.
Those are useful to have. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll help you get into better programs, but you will get all those things if you know how to go through the creative process. Explore, play, think. And that is something we need to encourage. Yeah, don’t get all mad at them because they didn’t get the right grade. Instead, ask, did you learn how to do this kind of problem? Did your creative energies get challenged here? Is there a way to do it better next time? These are opportunities. Are teachable moments. They’re not punishable moments. If you want your kids to grow up creative now a huge mistake.
Not encouraging questions. Let’s just say it simply. Creativity requires curiosity. Curiosity is the engine that drives human achievement. So when kids ask why, for the hundredth time, don’t roll your eyes. Don’t say, I already told you 99 times. They’re asking because they really want to know. So they ask why? Try to explain it to them. Give them an insight into your thought process and then encourage their curiosity. I was so glad you asked because now we can talk about whatever it is they’re asking about. Make it a journey. Take a journey with them and you know a great side effect.
Keep your mind young and sharp. Asking questions is the key to identifying and understand problems of the hardest parts of invention. Probably the hardest part is to accurately and succinctly identify the problem you’re trying to solve. Once you have identified the problem, a lot of times the solutions are really easy to come up with when compared to coming up with what the problem is. Encourage them to explore problems by asking questions. Now here’s another mistake. Don’t over protect and restrict exploration. Exploration is critical. We do want to keep our kids safe. We don’t want them to do dangerous things if they want to do something dangerous.
There is a way to approach it. So let’s say real life story actually happened. Your kid wants to know how hairdryer works and they say, hey, dad, I want to take this part of this hairdryer. You do want to mention, oh, I’m so glad you came to me with that, because a hairdryers can be dangerous. There’s a lot of electricity that goes through though, so let me help you do it and then explain how you unplug it. You should know if there’s a capacitor in there that can shock them. It’s a hairdryer. Almost certainly there isn’t.
But you take it apart carefully with them. Show them how it’s done. Maybe you go to the thrift store to get one. Maybe you just watch a YouTube video or someone takes it apart, however it works. Don’t shut down their creativity because of your fears. Figure out a way for them to do it safely. This is a variant on trust, but verify you want them to trust when you say something’s dangerous. To trust their instincts when they feel something might be dangerous, but then to figure out a way to verify that it’s untestable or to actually test it safely.
Now here’s another mistake. Overload of screen time that we can’t deny the role of tech in today’s world. It would be like ignoring the advent of generative AI. We could pretend it’s not there, but it’s still there. But we do know that too much screen time of the wrong type can really limit creativity. Digital devices deliver passive experiences so much of the time, and even when it’s nominally an active experience, like doomscrolling through Instagram or TikTok, or playing a game, you know you’re actively interacting, but your brain is not actively questioning and creating. But you do have some options for screen time that does stimulate creativity.
One option is to balance screen time with activities that do stimulate creativity, like drawing, building outdoor adventures, taking things apart, putting things together. But screen time does not always need to be bad. When I was a kid, I learned 6500 to assembly language, decompile, the Apple TV operating system, modified it and ran it, and it was much better than the one that came off the shelf in my opinion. That for me was powerful, active, life changing screen time where I got to explore my creativity in the context of computer coding. There’s a huge difference between playing a repetitive video game and using the screen as a tool for active learning.
Another mistake. Teaching a kid that there’s only one right way to do things. Creativity is about recognizing there are many solutions to every problem and creativity is a matter of finding a better one than the one we’re using. If we want to teach our kids that there’s only one right way to solve something, we’re going to limit their creativity enormously. We want them to think differently. We want them to have divergent thinking. So encourage them to find new ways to answer all questions. Another mistake treating neurodiversity as a negative instead of what it is, which is a superpower.
Neurodiversity, of course, refers to the wide range of natural variations in how people think. Every brain is unique. People with neurodiverse brains, people with autism, ADHD, dyslexia or who just have tendencies in those directions think differently than others and we should recognize that as a strength. Neurodiverse kids may have different ways of thinking and problem solving and expressing themselves, which are all great ways to power innovation. Celebrate neurodiversity. Remember, when you’re getting a patent on an invention, the invention has to be novel and not obvious. If your child thinks in a way that is novel and not obvious, they are way ahead of everyone else on the creative journey.
And finally, don’t ignore your kid’s creative interests. Don’t focus so hard on academic success that you discourage creativity in your kids, no matter how unconventional what they want to do. Recognize that they’re trying to explore the world around them. They’re trying to explore their own brain. Encourage it. So there you have it. Those are ten common parenting mistakes. I’m going to have a textual recap after so you can check them out again by watching past the end of this video. But the good news is, now that we’re aware of these ten mistakes, we can avoid them.
Creativity isn’t just a nice to have skill. It’s not just some and be kind of cool. My kid was creative, but who cares? It is foundational to problem solving. It is foundational to entrepreneurship. It is foundational to art. and it’s foundational for innovation. So let’s help our kids and keep their creativity alive. Stay creative. Stay innovative. Stay engaged. I’m Gary Schuster. This has been Innovation Cafe. And until next time, thanks for watching.