20 Mar Overcoming challenges by thinking creatively

Amy Cheadle, founder of The Northern Dough Co (a company that offers a range of frozen pizza dough products!), reflects on her experience encouraging her kids to overcome challenges by thinking creatively.

“As a parent, I often challenge my kids with problem solving to encourage their creative thinking. I might share a simple task from my own day and ask them how they’d approach it, or ask for their advice on a recipe or flavour, and encourage them to be specific with their feedback so they understand the difference between opinion and actionable insight.

“I’m always blown away by the conversations, and they love knowing that the challenges are real, and that they’re helping in some way. I like to think of it as a role-play for the creative thinkers of the future, and I always learn something too!”

We love the idea of bright young minds whirring away solving grown up business problems! It’s the perfect way to begin developing crucial life skills and you’ll be amazed how quickly they develop. They’ll quickly learn to make better suggestions, eliminating worse options and creating a broader range of suggestions. Ask some follow up questions and see if they can develop those ideas further, working out the pros and cons of what they come up with.

It’s a great way demonstrate how sharing challenges with others makes them much easier to solve compared with trying to keep everything to yourself. You’ll find they’re better able to share and articulate their own challenges and work through potential solutions. Creating a spider diagram of all the possibilities is a great way to visualise everything and be creative in the process!

Could your kids offer unique insights on the challenges you face in your working day? The conversations will spark lots of ideas and it’s a great way to bond with your child over real-life events, something they’ll relish.

Read more about how to nurture problem-solving skills in your child as well as their creativity.