I’m not gonna lie. I loved raising my son, but I saw my time parenting as time spent away from my creative pursuits. Parenting for me was about staying steady and predictable. Based on what I’d read, it seemed that a good parent was a consistent one, with a solid approach to managing the ups and downs of the job.
Now that I focus on creativity in my coaching work, I’m in a constant search for how a creative mindset can weave its way into all aspects of life.
And I happen to have two musical friends who work with parents professionally and are parents themselves:
Sarah Hardy, a licensed parent educator and dedicated choral singer and guitar player based in Minneapolis, and
Carole Downing, a Portland-based parenting coach who is also a songwriter, ukulele teacher, and song leader with a passion for vocal improv.
I called in the experts to explore some of the places where creativity and parenting intersect.
Marie: First, how do you define creativity?
Sarah: To me, creativity is kind of leaning into the freedom and flexibility to follow where the spirit moves, regardless of medium. It's being flexible enough to attune to and listen to the flow, and then following that, rather than any rigidity or rules. It’s improvisation. But it's also a trust fall, a letting go of what that something is supposed to be and just following.
Carole: I think a lot of creativity is entering into that space of turning off the thinking, reasoning brain and going into more of the flexible, fun flow and process without attachment. Although sometimes when I'm writing a song, I actually do want to write a song, but I'm giving myself the creative space to noodle around. I'm focusing on the process and the sensory enjoyment, rather than the productivity. Creativity helps me access that place where there's more flow and spontaneity, and less rigidity and rules and framework. More kind of an open container.
Marie: So, creativity isn’t simply about making things. It’s also a process of improvising and being open to what comes. How do flexibility and fun flow help in parenting?
Carole: When you are in the midst of a parenting struggle, it's the most counterintuitive place to go to creativity to source a solution. And yet every single time I have sourced from creativity, it opens up the answer. The more we practice creativity, the more that we're available for the muse or novelty to show up, so that we're not feeling hamstrung in the moment where we need to play.
Sarah: I think that anytime you can introduce levity or playfulness into your parenting, like how can I insert a silly voice here, or make this a game, or let my kid lead a little and just let go of how it turns out, it’s such a good lubricant for relationships. We are all drawn to novelty. And so anytime a parent surprises a child with their response (like making breakfast for dinner, for example), it changes the feel of the whole series of interactions around that event.
Carole: I remember a time when I couldn’t get my son to get ready for school, because he didn’t want to stop playing with his Legos. He needed to brush his teeth before leaving, so I said, “Lego Guy needs to brush his teeth, and in minutes, we brushed Lego Guy’s tiny teeth, then we brushed his teeth, and we’re out the door! It felt excruciating to stop and play instead of staying with my agenda of getting out the door, but it was one of those moments where if I had pushed against teeth brushing, it wouldn’t have happened and likely would have created an unwelcome struggle.
Marie: I know from my work in education that play is the foundation of child development. Play is the way kids learn and make sense of their world. They make up words, stories, songs, games, all of which are ever-changing. So what I’m hearing you both say is that the more a parent can enter that playful world, the better equipped they are to handle unexpected situations when they arise, and in a way that their kids will respond to.
Carole: Children's language is play. That's how they are flowing in the world. Speaking their language is the way to tap into something that they really understand.
Sarah: But play is not all rough and tumble.
Carole: Yes! Parents often think that play’s gotta be big, it's got to be loud, it's got to be wild, it's got to be like, throwing paint all over the living room floor. It can be small and quiet - like five minutes of building something together on the floor. It can be singing instructions rather than saying them. It doesn't have to be all in. Small steps can help break through that fear of losing control of the situation.
Marie: So getting into a playful mindset helps get into the child’s mindset. How does it help parents?
Sarah: I think that effective parenting has to center on the wellbeing of the parent. There's a wide range of reasonable in parenting, but the wheels come off when the adult isn't okay. So if that adult is having a mental health issue, or there's poverty, or some other intensive stress going on, then it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to attend to somebody else with consistency and responsiveness.
I do an exercise with parents, where I ask them to think of a time when they observed their parents really laughing and enjoying themselves. Typically, the contexts of these memories are where their parents were doing something creative or social, often both at the same time. And then if they can recall how they felt as a child, observing their adult, their attachment figure is so relaxed, and in the flow of enjoyment. It's a very safe feeling for a child to have: if my grown-up is this relaxed and joyful right now, things must be really safe.
Carole: I would add that parents need to regulate their own emotions well in order to model that for their kids. And so often, creative activity can help with that regulation: singing, drawing, writing, crafting, building something.
But, we're not always going to be regulated. We’re going to make mistakes, we're going to yell. I think there's this illusion that we have to be perfect parents, that everybody else is a perfect parent, and that nobody else goes off the rails. And that repair is a skill that not only creates trust with our kids, but that breaks that perfectionistic mold for them. We’re going to mess up, and we try to repair in a way that feels safe. You know, we circle back, we always circle back and acknowledge what happened. Not in undermining the authority that we have, but somehow just making it a normal thing to repair.
Sarah: I actually think it improves our credibility. If we own our stuff and say, gosh, that came out wrong, or I really regret that. There's something really vulnerable about asking for an apology. And of receiving an apology and offering forgiveness, too. That's a really intimate interaction, one of the most between two people. And we want our kids to be on both sides of that. It's an important thing for them to expect in their intimate relationships.
Marie: That's great. Yeah, getting practice with that is so vital as an adult skill. This normalization of making mistakes and doing repair is similar to the part of creativity that is a never-ending journey that unfolds over time. This idea that the parent-child relationship is on a long journey together, and there's no one perfect way to be. Here we are building together, and sometimes the building falls over, but we can put it back together. It's about a loving relationship that's going to be imperfect. The light that comes in through the cracks and all that. I hadn't thought of it that way before. Beautiful.
I feel really grateful for this conversation. I learned so much from you both. Thank you!
