Articles

Teach Your Tween Creativity

by Danielle Wood

Want to help your tween become a confident, creative, young man or woman? Give them a pen and paper, says Michele Dominguez Greene.

If you saw her face, you might recognize her – the Emmy-nominated actress had a stint on LA Law and is now a regular on David Mamet's CBS series The Unit. But when the cameras are off, Greene focuses on her other passion – teaching young people how writing can change their lives. Her novel, Chasing the Jaguar (Harper Collins), was nominated by the American Library Association for the 2007 Best Books for Young Adults Award.

Greene says, "Everyone is a writer, whether they know it or not. Whenever you tell a friend a story, you are writing." Writing is important, especially for teenagers and adolescents, she says, because it gives distance and perspective. "Being a teenager is like being in the spin cycle of a washing machine," and by writing down what they're feeling, teens can record raw emotions, then look back at them later and realize what has changed.

So what can you do to help them along? Here are Greene's tips on helping your child find their voice:

Give Them a Journal: Writing without the aid of a computer helps kids improve grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. But it also develops tremendous life skills. It teaches kids to see on a page how they think. Give your child a journal and keep one yourself. Let them know that their journal is theirs alone, and that you will never read it, but clue them in on some of the things you're writing about. "It's important for children to know that their parents are human, that they struggle with things, too, and that they have faults," Greene says. As they near adulthood, you want them to begin to relate to you as a person, not just a parent.