How to Nurture Creativity in Children: What the Research Says

Creativity in children is the knack of coming up with new ideas: a box becomes a boat, a story takes a turn nobody expected. You nurture it by making room for it: time for pretend and open-ended play, a few simple toys, story games where your child decides what happens next, and questions with more than one answer. No single activity is proven to "make" a child creative.

In short

• The American Academy of Pediatrics (2018) says play with parents and peers builds social-emotional, thinking, language and self-regulation skills, and asks pediatricians to write a "prescription for play".
• Pretend play is strongly linked with creative thinking, but a major 2013 review concluded the evidence does not show it causes creativity.
• In one small study, 36 toddlers given 4 toys instead of 16 played longer with each and in more varied ways.
• The "creativity crisis" is disputed: a 2021 reanalysis of over 330,000 people's test scores found no evidence of a generational decline.

What actually helps creativity grow?

Ordinary things: play (often with you), a few toys that can be anything, and room for your child's ideas.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report The Power of Play says play with parents and peers is "a singular opportunity to promote the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain." It is about development in general, not creativity. Imagination and feelings grow side by side; see our bigger guide to emotional intelligence in children.

Does pretend play make children more creative?

Pretend play goes hand in hand with creativity, but no one has shown it causes it. So enjoy it rather than teach it.

Russ's 2016 review found "strong evidence" that pretend-play processes are associated with creativity, especially divergent thinking (many answers to one question), but "a lack of consensus" on whether pretend play actually boosts it. A major 2013 review by Lillard and colleagues was blunter: results were inconsistent, the real causes may be "child, adult, and environment characteristics that go along with play," and the evidence "does not support strong causal claims about the unique importance of pretend play."

To join in without taking over, take a small part ("I'll be the customer"), ask rather than steer ("What's the dragon called?"), and go along when the rules change.

What are open-ended toys, and do fewer toys help?

Open-ended toys have no single right use: blocks, boxes, fabric, play dough, figures, pots and spoons. One small study suggests fewer at once can deepen play.

In that study, by Dauch and colleagues (2018), 36 toddlers had free-play sessions with 4 toys and with 16. With fewer toys, they moved between toys less often, played longer with each and "played with toys in a greater variety of ways." With one lab session per condition, it is a hint, not a rule.

• Store most toys; rotate a handful every week or two.
• Count everyday objects: a colander is a helmet, a scarf is a river.
• Pick toys you can play with together. The AAP's 2019 report on toys favors play "rich in language, pretending, problem-solving, and creativity," and notes a "lack of evidence" of similar benefits from digital "toys".

Should I let my child be bored?

Unplanned time is worth protecting: it leaves room for play your child chooses. But boredom itself has not been shown to make children creative.

Two studies by Mann and Cadman (2014), with 80 and 90 participants not described as children, found that boring tasks raised creativity. A partial replication with 197 undergraduates did not find this: "neither state nor trait boredom promote increased creativity." None of these studies tested young children.

When your child says "I'm bored", stay unbothered ("I wonder what you'll come up with"), point to materials ("The box of odds and ends is by the door"), and if truly stuck, offer one starter: "Could you build Teddy a house?"

Is it normal for my child to have an imaginary friend?

Yes, it is common. In a study by Taylor and colleagues (2004) that began with 152 preschoolers, 65% had had an imaginary companion at some point by age 7. At retesting, school-age children who did not "impersonate" (act out imaginary characters) scored lower on emotion understanding. That is a correlation in one sample, not proof that a child without one is behind.

Show interest ("Does Zog want a cup too?"). If something about your child's play or behavior worries you, talk to your pediatrician.

How do you play the "what happens next?" story game?

One person starts a story and everyone takes turns adding to it, a game Harvard's Center on the Developing Child suggests for ages 4 to 7.

Its activity guide says the game "requires them to pay attention to each other, reflect on possible plot twists, and come up with additions to fit the changing story." It suggests helping children write down their words, illustrate their stories and act them out, and "stepping back from leading their play." The guide frames it as executive-function practice, not a creativity test.

A bedtime round:

1. You: "Once, a very small dragon found a door at the bottom of the sea."
2. Your child adds a sentence. Accept it, whatever it is, and build on it.
3. After a few turns, stop on a cliffhanger. Tomorrow, your child draws the best moment and you write their words underneath.

Short of a first line? Read one of our magical stories or dragon stories and stop before the end: "How do you think it ends?" Stories with your child as the hero are another way in.

Which questions open up a child's imagination?

Questions with many possible answers, asked with real curiosity, then a pause long enough to think.

With drawings, ask rather than guess, describe rather than grade ("lots of swirly blue!"), and let a picture become a story.

What creative activities suit each age?

At every age: room to play, something to play with, and an adult who follows.

Are children losing their creativity?

That is disputed. The "creativity crisis" compares test scores of different people across decades, not the same children over time, and a larger reanalysis found no evidence of a decline.

Kim (2011) compared the norming samples of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking from 1966 to 2008, 272,599 people in all, and reported that scores fell after 1990, most for kindergarten to third grade. A 2021 reanalysis by Barbot and Said-Metwaly of more than 330,000 people found "no evidence for the notion of a generational decline of creativity." Kim's 2021 update still reports declines, especially in young children: the debate is open.

Two more myths. "Creativity drops in fourth grade": a meta-analysis of 41 studies with 40,918 children and teenagers found no general fourth-grade slump. "98% of 5-year-olds are creative geniuses": this "NASA study" figure traces to a 1993 business book, Breakpoint and Beyond, and we found no peer-reviewed paper or dataset behind it.

Where MiniMinds fits

In MiniMinds, a bedtime-story app, your child picks a hero, a world and a lesson, and Pofi, our storyteller (a small purple felt monster), writes a brand-new illustrated story with AI in minutes and reads it aloud. The creative part is your child's choices and what you do next: pause before the end to ask what happens, or draw the hero together. It is a spark for play, not a replacement. Our free library holds thousands of stories families chose to share.

Sources

1. Yogman et al.; American Academy of Pediatrics (2018). The Power of Play. Pediatrics. link
2. Healey & Mendelsohn; American Academy of Pediatrics (2019). Selecting Appropriate Toys for Young Children in the Digital Era. Pediatrics. link
3. Russ (2016). Pretend Play: Antecedent of Adult Creativity. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. link
4. Lillard et al. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children's development. Psychological Bulletin. link
5. Dauch et al. (2018). The influence of the number of toys in the environment on toddlers' play. Infant Behavior & Development. link
6. Mann & Cadman (2014). Does Being Bored Make Us More Creative? Creativity Research Journal. link
7. Nettinga et al. (2023). Exploring the Relation between State and Trait Boredom and Various Measures of Creativity. Journal of Boredom Studies. link
8. Taylor et al. (2004). The characteristics and correlates of fantasy in school-age children. Developmental Psychology. link
9. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2024). 5 Games & Activities for Children (4–7 years). link
10. Kim (2011). The Creativity Crisis. Creativity Research Journal. link
11. Barbot & Said-Metwaly (2021). Is There Really a Creativity Crisis? Journal of Creative Behavior. link
12. Kim (2021). Creativity Crisis Update. Roeper Review. link
13. Said-Metwaly et al. (2021). Does the Fourth-Grade Slump in Creativity Actually Exist? Educational Psychology Review. link
14. Land & Jarman (1993). Breakpoint and Beyond. HarperBusiness. link