Supporting Creativity Or Conformity? Influence of Home Environment and Parental Factors on the Value of Children's Creativity Characteristics

Although creativity is a desirable skill, parenting for creativity may be quite a challenge and may be less favored than parenting for conformity. The present study aims to investigate parent-related factors that may support creativity versus conformity at home. To this end, this study examined how parents' attitudes and values toward creativity, creative home environment, and mindful parenting style are related to parents' perceptions of creative versus socially acceptable characteristics. Analyses of the data collected from 1324 parents (predominantly mothers) indicated that parents were more supportive of creativity traits than socially acceptable characteristics. Most importantly, parents' attitudes and values toward creativity and creative home environment were significantly and positively related to support for creativity characteristics, whereas mindful parenting was significantly and negatively related to support for socially acceptable characteristics in children. Those findings show that parents who value creativity and set up a creative environment are more likely to support children's creativity. Mindful parenting style seems to indirectly support creativity because it is associated with lower respect for socially acceptable characteristics, some of which are at odds with creativity. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications for training programs that enhance awareness of creativity.