By Giles Goodland, Creative Writing Tutor at Superprof.
Children love to write because they love language. It is still new to them, like a playground, full of possibility and challenge.
Imagine a parent taking a child to a park and ignoring the playground. Imagine them saying, Let’s do some jogging instead or let’s find the names for all of these flowers. The fun would soon go out of that.
The same is true of writing. Before children learn the rules, they need permission to play.
Encourage play before perfection
Teaching young children to write is first of all showing that language is simply a collection of rules that can be broken. The first rule of language is that it should make sense. It should behave, like a classroom of children sitting at desks. On the other hand, the first rule of poetry and much of creative writing is that language does not need to make anything. It should misbehave, like a box of puppies who have just learnt to leave the box.
This may be shocking news to some parents, but remember: puppies naturally grow up to be loyal, wise and sensitive animals, although often retaining their sense of fun and playfulness.
If children are given permission to experiment with language first, accuracy becomes much easier to teach later.
Understand that confidence often dips around age eight
Stanford neuroscience research suggests that children experience a slump in creative processing around ages eight to ten. The blank page or screen can suddenly seem terrifying for an eight-year-old, and this terror often increases as they grow up. They become inhibited and compare their work to adult standards, leading to perfectionism and self doubt.
Often formal schooling may add to a feeling that writing should have a target that must be achieved through fulfilling a set of rules. This is where a writing tutor can become helpful, but parents can also make a significant difference at home by removing the pressure to get everything right immediately.
Don’t start with the rules
In teaching creative writing, I’d rarely start with the rules.
There are rules, of course, just like a playground has rules. Outside, children usually learn not to fall off the swing or push other kids off the climbing frame. In a lesson, learning rules is often more about exploring how a piece of writing is read and understood. Perhaps these are more like ways of sharing or agreeing than rules.
After all, if people ignored grammar in their daily lives, confusion might well result. However, in writing, the best effects are often achieved by breaking rules.
Think of how young children frequently attempt to run or crawl up a slide rather than sliding down it, transforming it into a climbing challenge. Kids will roll toy cars, drop stones, or pour other items down the chute to watch them crash or race. They claim the dark, triangular void underneath the top platform of a slide as a secret base or jail. In this way, they learn. When one child wants to go down a slide and another is climbing up, they negotiate, read body language and practise conflict resolution.
Writing is much the same.
Protect your child’s creative momentum
A tutor, even of older children, should not insist on the perceived rules of writing. This would be as inappropriate as shouting to a child that they are using the slide the wrong way.
The fastest method of killing a writer’s momentum, regardless of whether they are eight or eighty, is to correct every grammatical mistake. The same applies to errors of style or subject.
Ted Hughes wrote about the menace of the inner policemen or border guards who patrol the mind of the writer, arresting and detaining thoughts that cross the line. He saw that evading these policemen is the game of the writer.
For younger children, focus on where their creative energy is going while showing them a few old tricks along the way. For teenagers, encourage them to explore complexity, abstraction and depth. Mention writers new to them, but only to show them a new creative avenue they may not have considered yet.
Separate creativity from correction
Drafting and editing are separate activities.
One vivid metaphor or compelling sound combination is far more valuable than a correctly spelt vegetable. That can come later and should be seen as a different activity from creating.
Children need space to generate ideas before they are asked to refine them, allow them that space.
Be your child’s biggest supporter
For younger students in particular, writing is often a shared activity, although I have also written poems together with adult students in real time. For older pre-teens and teenagers, shift the focus toward deeper hooks and varied poetic forms. The tricky constraints of a sonnet or a villanelle can suit students who enjoy structure and building.
Perhaps more risky for parents or teachers is to show them poetry as an emotional outlet, using free verse and long or short lines of intense imagery to capture the turbulent feelings that define the teenage years. Often the transition from the writer to the persona is the key here.
Ultimately, parents should act as both their child’s biggest fan and most attentive audience. When your writer finishes a piece of prose or a poem, invite them to read it aloud. Listen with genuine enthusiasm. Leave a gap between appreciation and any feedback. Avoid imperatives—I know, I just broke my own rule. Instead, begin with phrases such as, “This made me feel…”, “This made me think…”, or “This made me believe…”
By prioritising the joy of expression over the mechanics of grammar, you will help your child build a love of words that carries them far beyond their school years.
About the expert
Giles Goodland is a Creative Writing Tutor at Superprof. He lives in London and works freelance as a writer, editor, and teacher. His books include Of Discourse (Grand Iota 2023). A Spy in the House of Years (Leviathan, 2001) Capital (Salt, 2006), Dumb Messengers (Salt, 2012) and The Masses (Shearsman, 2018).
