Inspiring creativity in my two year old...

My two year old loves to be creative.  She's far more creative than I was at her age I think.  Much has changed in the 35 years that separate us as far as activities go.  At that time, computers definitely didn't fit in your hand, where Abby has shown me how to do things I didn't even know I could do in her little paint program on my Samsung Galaxy Ace.  Ok, she's left me with more than one puzzle to try and figure out how to reverse, including disabling my Swype keyboard...  But it's fun to watch her not be afraid to push buttons and learn.  Ok, replace fun with frightening and you'll have a better picture of my feelings at times.

Abby packing a picnic in her tackle box.

How to inspire her creativity though?  I want to give her the best experiences I can for her childhood, and I WANT to be a part of it, be it doing puzzles with her, having a picnic, and the like.  I don't want to be one of those deadbeat dads that leaves their kids in front of the TV to be raised.  It rather frightens me how zombified she becomes when the TV is on and she's watching a show she loves.  There's no distracting her.  She's pulled right in.



She's always loved video and pictures, especially of herself.  You can play a video of her and immediately on finishing, she's saying "Again."  Given her love of videos of herself and my hobby of video editing, I thought I'd try and merge them into something we could share to inspire her creativity and have fun while making memories.  Hence the Abby show was born, named "Take a Look" after one of her favorite sayings she uses when she's curious about something, or when I'm filming her.

I try and let her pick topics to do make into episodes, whether something new or something from old footage.  Then I cut it together (she's not quite old enough).  Any text used in the episode she gets to pick style and color for, sometimes with a little guidance as to what works and what doesn't - her go-to premade text style is always too big to fit on the screen, but after some concessions, we reach an agreement over something that will work, even if the coloring isn't agreeable to me.

So far we've got 8 short episodes done, and are working on more, as we get time together.  It's always fun to see her enjoy the final product, or get excited to pick a font.  Eventually she'll pick transitions hopefully, but so far that hasn't worked out well.

I know this isn't necessarily something everyone can do, but it's something we've enjoyed.  What do you do with your children to inspire creativity, build memories, or spend time together?  Sound off in the comments and let us know your best ideas and most fun moments.

If you want to see one of our episodes, have a look below.