Creative self-concept during the early years of parenthood : an exploratory study

Abstract

This exploratory research study seeks to gain an understanding of a parent’s creative self-concept in the early years and in their interactions and engagement with their children aged between 18 and 36 months. The literature on creative self-concept has been on the rise in the last 10 years with a body of research focusing on the older child (school age, specifically teenagers) and possible influencing factors such as teacher influence and home climate. However, to date, studies focusing on preschool children and the possible influence of their parents’ self-concept on their engagement in creative activities is still limited. The research questions guiding this dissertation were explored by looking at parents with only one child aged between 18 months and 3 years and exploring their perception of their creative self-concept and their experience in their early parenthood experience in relation to creative engagement with their toddlers. This study seeks to explore the parents’ views on creativity, their creative self efficacy and their creative personal identity. It also seeks to better understand their own childhood experience in the context of creative endeavours and residual influence on their adulthood, the types of creative activities that they mostly engage in and also soft skills present in their own identity which they find useful. Purposive sampling was applied to conduct 11 semi-structured online interviews. The data was analysed by means of thematic analysis in order to extract the main relevant insights. The findings suggest that parents who rate their creative self-concept highly and tend to be more in favour of exposing their child to creative activities are more willing to participate in such endeavours. The study concludes that parents are highly influential on their child’s upbringing and their creative self-concept is one dynamic which forms part of a bigger picture that influences a child’s exposure to creativity.