Abstract
This article presents the results of a longitudinal research study undertaken to understand the familial context of creative children. The objective was to identify commonalities and specifics in patterns of nurturance present in the home environments of creative children. The participants, identified using intensity sampling, comprised four children in the age group three to 16 years at the time of selection, who had received public recognition for their creative pursuits; their families, and each child’s guru/coach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations were used to understand the dynamic nature of the relationships within the family setting that led to the discovery of the child’s creativity and its subsequent nurturance. Detailed case profiles were developed over a three year period. The case profiles reflected commonalities in the basic processes of nurturance. All the families were cohesive, with the members sharing a commonality of purposes. Parents actively fostered their children’s creativity by allocating resources—money, time and effort; introducing the child to the domain and the field; being closely involved in the learning process; and expressing praise. The uniqueness of the cases lay in the specifics – in the quality of cultural capital available to the families, in the parents’ experiences as children which were the motivational source for parenting. The key feature in nurturance was the synchronicity of purpose created by strong parental motivation to nurture their child’s creativity and the strong internal motivation of the child to persevere in the creative domain.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldous, J. (1973). Family background factors and originality in children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 17, 183–192.
Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity. New York: Springer.
Aron, E. N., & Aron, A. (1982). An introduction to Maharishi’s theory of creativity: Its empirical base and description of the creative process. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 16, 29–49.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture, and person: a systems view of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 325–339). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Implications of a systems perspective for the study of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 313–335). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dacey, J. S. (1989). Discriminating characteristics of families of highly creative adolescents. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 23, 263–271.
Dauw, D. C. (1966). Life experiences of original thinkers and good elaborators. Exceptional Children, 32, 433–443.
Deshpande, G. T. (1989). Abhinavgupta. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy.
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
Feldman, D. H. (1999). The development of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 169–186). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, M. (1983). Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic.
Gardner, M. (1993). Creating minds: an anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi. New York: Basic.
Gruber, H. E. (1989). The evolving systems approach to creative work. In D. B. Wallace & H. E. Gruber (Eds.), Creative people at work (pp. 3–24). New York: Oxford University Press.
Gruber, H. E., & Wallace, D. B. (1999). The case study method and the evolving systems approach for understanding uniquely creative people at work. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 93–115). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hallman, R. J. (1970). Toward a Hindu theory of creativity. Educational Theory, 20, 368–376.
Harrington, D. M. (1999). Conditions and settings/environment. In M. A. Runco & S. R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of creativity, Volume 1 (pp. 323–340). New York: Academic.
Harrington, D. M., Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1987). Testing aspects of Carl Rogers’ theory of creative environments :Child rearing antecedents of creative potential in young adolescents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 851–856.
Howe, M. J. A. (1999). Prodigies and creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 431–446). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Khandwala, P. N. (2004). Lifelong creativity: an unending quest. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.
Krippner, S., & Arons, M. (1973). Creativity: person, product or process? Gifted Child.
Lubart, T. L. (1999). Creativity across cultures. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 339–350). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mackinnon, D. W. (1962). The nature and nurture of creative talent. American Psychologist, 17, 489–495.
Maitra, K. (1996). Parenting the gifted. New Delhi: Discovery.
Mathur, S. G. (1982). Cross-cultural implications of creativity. Indian Psychological Review, 22, 12–19.
Mayer, R. E. (1999). Fifty years of creativity research. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 449–460). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Misra, G., Srivastava, A. K., & Misra, I. (2006). Culture and facets of creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The international handbook of creativity (pp. 421–455). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nickerson, R. S. (1999). Enhancing creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 392–430). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Panda, M. (2004). Cultural construction of creativity: Dualism and beyond. Paper presented at ----- name of conference to be taken from Dr. Sharma.
Panda, M., & Yadava, R. (2005). Implicit theories of creativity. Psychological Studies, 50, 32–39.
Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). New Delhi: Sage.
Policastro, E., & Gardner, H. (1999). From case studies to robust generalizations: An approach to the study of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 225–231). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Raina, M. K. (1984). Social cultural change and changes in creative functioning in children. New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training.
Raina, U. (1991). What is honoured—Creativity or conformity? Studies in the area of parental and teacher perceptions of the ideal child. New Delhi: Indian Council of Social Science Research.
Raina, V. K. (1996). Strengthening the colleges of teacher education in India: An appraisal study. Journal of Higher Education, 19, 31–42.
Raina, M. K. (1999). Rabindranath Tagore. In M. A. Runco & S. R. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of creativity (Vol. 2, pp. 617–621). New York: Academic.
Raina, M. K., Srivastava, A. K., & Misra, G. (2001). Exploration in literary creativity: some preliminary observations. Psychological Studies, 46, 148–160.
Rogers, C. R. (1970). Towards a theory of creativity. In P.E. Vernon (Ed.), Creativity (pp.137–151). New York: Penguin Books.
Sen, R. S., & Sharma, N. (2011). Through multiple lenses: Implicit theories of creativity among Indian children and adults. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 45, 273–302.
Sherr, J. (1982). The universal structures and dynamics of creativity: Maharishi, Plato, Jung and various creative geniuses on the creative process. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 16, 155–175.
Simonton, D. K. (1999). Creativity from a historiometric perspective. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 116–133). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Srivastava, A. K., & Misra, G. (2001). Exploration in literary creativity: Some preliminary observations. Psychological Studies, 46(3), 418–160.
Super, C., & Harkness, S. (1997). The cultural structuring of child development. In J. W. Berry, P. R. Dasen, & T. S. Sarawathi (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology, vol. 2: basic processes and human development (pp. 3–39). New Delhi: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sen, R.S., Sharma, N. The Familial Context of Creativity: Patterns of Nurturance in Families of Creative Children. Psychol Stud 58, 374–385 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-013-0221-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-013-0221-y