This week was very exciting as my son’s first art exhibition opened to the public.  His installation consisting of videos, stills, paintings and construction, attracted much attention and curiosity because it was based on my family home.  He has been visiting his grandparents in India since he was five months old but it was after I watched the movie with his voice over that I realised how much he had absorbed about my life there without me directing his thoughts or saying much.

Of course, I was very proud that his work was selected for this exhibition and that it was received well.  But the most gratifying thing was that somehow by osmosis, he had absorbed ideas about expressing himself creatively by perhaps watching me.  Everyone wants to be creative but when one is able to inspire creativity in others, that is also a great thing. So I was amazed as well as chuffed.

As parents or carers, what we give to our children is something that we don’t speak about. What they are watching is what we do, not what we say.  My son is a teenager and we have the kind of arguments that parents of teenagers have with them.  So in that respect he is ‘normal’.  But overcoming those issues, he has managed to transmit our relationship and that of his with his grandparents into a tangible art form that others can appreciate. Awhile back, I had commented on my mother’s sewing and how I now display her work in my home as works of art.  So she had transmitted her love of creation to me and I have done that to my child.

So never underestimate your own creativity and what you might be transmitting to your children or anyone young.