By being involved with the child from an early age with creative endeavours such as gardening, sewing, painting, pottery, drawing, weaving, felt making, and even cooking, we encourage a sense of wonder in the child, and they learn that life is good, our hands can make beautiful things, good things to eat.

Human beings are creative beings, but our modern lifestyle means we buy most things ready made, even our food, and our children lose connection with the elements and the natural world - the world we depend on. We must connect ourselves with this world for their sake: spending more time outdoors, enjoying nature, walking, playing , running, climbing trees, spending time making things with our hands.

Many parents find enormous satisfaction from making something for their child, whether it's a simple toy (wooden blocks from off-cuts, sanded and oiled) sewing a rucksack for their first day at kindergarten or playschool, making a special doll, building a tree house with a child, making a vegetable or flower garden.

Children thrive on being around creative adults. I remember both my children as babies always wanting to be in the sling, and intently watching as I chopped vegetables, stirred the soup, fixed things, sewed or painted. We need to do what we can to obliterate our beliefs that we can't make a doll ourselves, can't sew clothes for the children, etc.

In our modern world the amount of time children spend working creatively with their hands is very important, and as a parent or caretaker you can make a big difference to their future by spending a few hours a week being creative, and making things together.

creating your own games and toys

... such games, such toys, created for a particular child or particular children at a particular moment, are the allies of all good and constructive forces. The children do not feel themselves as mass-beings …. but they experience their uniqueness as personalities!

Something special was created for just these children and later they will take their own responsibility seriously. They will lead their lives, not as mass-particles which let themselves be driven, but as human beings whose thoughts and actions are of consequence.
Neuro-physiologist Professor Matti Bergstrom of Helsinki University

nimble fingers make nimble minds

The brain discovers what the fingers explore…If we don't use our fingers, if in childhood we become 'finger-blind', the rich network of nerves is impoverished - this represents a huge loss to the brain and thwarts the individual's all-round development… If we neglect to develop and train our children's fingers and the creative form-building capacity of the hand muscles, then we neglect to develop their understanding of the unity of things; we thwart their aesthetic and creative powers.

Those who shaped our age-old traditions always understood this. But today Western civilization, and information obsessed society that overvalues science and undervalues true worth, has forgotten it all. We are 'value-damaged'.
Neuro-physiologist Professor Matti Bergstrom of Helsinki University