Creative Thinking has a dash of special excitement to it. It is a natural, healthy human process that occurs when children become curious and excited. This is in contrast to the traditional learning by authority, recognition, memory and logical reasoning. Today, parents and teachers are encouraged to provide opportunities for creative behaviours so as to facilitate their children learn better and sometimes faster. Children themselves prefer house chores and classroom assignments that call for original work and independent learning.

Children are naturally curious, inventive, explorative and fun loving. When you label a child's flights of fantasy as ‘silly’, you bring the child down with a thud, causing the curious cat within him to curl up and die. Traits such as ‘conforming to rules’ and ‘being like others’ may destroy a child's creative potential to some extent. Do not brush aside questions because you are too busy or the questions are too ‘silly’. Curiosity is a sure indicator of creativity. Often, you will be surprised to note the unique questions children ask and the unusual solutions they come up with. Lend them a patient ear and respect their ideas!

	The following are some things caring teachers can do to foster and nurture creativity:
	Teach children to appreciate and be pleased with their own creative efforts.
	Encourage children to test their ideas and communicate them to others.
	Provide opportunities and give credit for self-initiated learning.
	A no-threat environment devoid of immediate evaluation enhances learning, thinking, and discovering. Accept errors as part of the creative process.
	Give opportunities to think of creative ways of resolving conflicts between students and siblings.
	Encourage curiosity, exploration, experimentation, fantasy, questioning and testing for the development of creative talents.
	Encourage creative expression, creative problem-solving, and constructive responses.
	Prepare children for new experiences, and help develop creative ways of coping with them.
	Do not cause subtle pressure on the child by comparing with other children, pressuring to be realistic and to stop imagining.