Do you have a student who's really into creative writing? Maybe he's scrawling through pages of a notebook with story ideas. Maybe she's typing up a Google Doc she shares with friends, or meticulously documenting a fictional world. Maybe he just loves chatting through characters and plot points with whomever will listen.
Whether you're thrilled with this new interest, or you're bemused or even puzzled by it, how you talk to your teens about their pursuit can affect how they experience creativity now and later on in life.
However well-meaning your motives, please do NOT say these things:
"That's nice, but can you get an actual job with that?"
"Why not spend that time doing something more productive?"
"Oh, sweetie, I know you'll publish a great book and then I'll be so proud of you!"
"One day you're going to be a famous author and then all this time you're spending will be worth it!"
"The world needs your stories! Maybe this is why God put you on Earth-to write a bestselling book that changes lives!"*
(* Please do not say this last one unless you want to set your child up for a haunting sense of failure and a spiritual identity crisis later in life.)
Obviously in this list of sample statements, there are seemingly opposite approaches. But they all share the same underlying fallacy: Creativity is only worthwhile at the professional level.