Episode #1

Children Are Born Creative Geniuses!

🎁 Get Your Montessori Practical Life Guide

Listen On ...

Dr. Land’s NASA study found that 98% of children start as creative geniuses, but only 2% keep that spark into adulthood.


"Children are born creative geniuses!" That’s exactly what Dr. George Land and Dr. Beth Jarman discovered when they tested 1,600 American children using NASA’s Imaginative Thinking Test. Their 10-year study revealed a shocking decline in creativity over time:

*Ages 4-5: 98% scored at genius levels in creativity 
*Age 10: Only 30% retained their creative genius 
*Age 15: That number dropped to 12% 
*Adulthood: Less than 2% remained creative geniuses 

This study proves that we are all born with extraordinary divergent creative potential—but as time passes, something dims that spark. Something smothers our ingenuity and creativity as time ticks by.

The question is: What’s holding us back? 

98% of kids are creative geniuses—
until school teaches them to think inside the box. 

Write your awesome label here.

A NASA-backed study found that 98% of 4-5-year-olds test at genius-level creativity. But by adulthood? Less than 2% remain. Not because creativity fades, but because we’re taught to stop using it.

From an early age, kids are trained to follow rules, find the right answer, and play it safe—while creativity thrives in possibilities, not perfection. 

Schools teach kids to find the right answer—not new ideas.

Over time, creativity gets replaced with memorization, and curiosity turns into compliance.

The Creativity Crisis: How We’re Unintentionally Holding Our Kids Back

Dr. George Land’s NASA-backed study tested 1,600 children on creative thinking, starting at ages 4-5. The results were mind-blowing—98% of them scored at genius levels in creativity.

But as they grew older, that spark faded fast: by grade school, only 30% remained highly creative, dropping to 12% in high school, and by adulthood? A shocking 2%.

So, what happened? Land’s study suggests that traditional education and societal norms don’t nurture creativity—they smother it. Children are born creative geniuses, full of curiosity and imagination, but something dims that flame over time.

One major reason? The way we teach thinking.

Two Types of Thinking—And Why They Matter
Our brains use two distinct thinking processes, but when kids are forced to use both at the same time, it creates mental friction that diminishes brainpower.

Children are born with an inner flame of curiosity and innovation, but when we force them to use divergent and convergent thinking at the same time, it creates a mental tug-of-war. Their neurons compete instead of collaborate, making it harder for the brain to function at full capacity.

Divergent Thinking:
This fuels creativity, imagination, and innovation. It’s spontaneous and allows endless possibilities to emerge. It’s why kids can turn a cardboard box into a spaceship or see a dragon in the clouds. An inquisitive mind feeds this natural desire to learn, explore, and grow.

Convergent Thinking:
This is focused, logical, and judgment-based thinking—what we use to analyze, test, and make decisions. It’s essential for solving problems and reaching conclusions, but it works best when separated from creative thought.

The real issue? When we ask kids to be creative and critical at the same time, we unknowingly weaken their ability to think powerfully. Dr. George Land explained in his 2011 TEDx Talk that this conflict in thinking doesn’t just slow creativity—it shrinks it over time.

If we want to keep our kids’ creative genius alive, we need to stop un-teaching creativity and start giving them the space to think freely. 

It is time to rethink the way we teach thinking!

Montessori Practical Life Guide

Get started on your Montessori-inspired journey with this Practical Life Guide, designed to help you seamlessly integrate real-life, hands-on learning into your homeschooling routine. Download your free guide now! ⬇️

Write your awesome label here.

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 Introduction: The Creative Genius in Every Child

00:13 Meet Anya Garcia: From Attorney to Homeschooling Advocate

01:15 Understanding the Decline of Creativity

02:03 The Science Behind Creativity: NASA's Study

04:31 Divergent vs. Convergent Thinking

07:37 Reviving Creativity: Practical Tips for Parents

13:27 Conclusion: Nurturing Creative Genius

Write your awesome label here.

How to Nurture Divergent Thinking:

Encourage Work Based on Real Experiences
Encourage work based on real experiences and observations. Once they observe (look and learn), they will remember the experiences the most! Offer them to roll their sleeves and do the doing, embracing hands-on learning. 

Encourage Imagination, not Imitation.
Imagination is the unique ability that makes us human, apart from animals who can merely imitate. Offer children plenty of opportunities to imagine things and practice being creative.

Offer a child to Pay Careful Attention to their Senses
Ask them awareness questions about what we are touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. The more senses the children utilize, the richer the experience. 

Motivate a Child with Open Questions
An open question has more than one answer, and such thinking generates new possibilities. Allow children to express themselves.

Encourage Hands-on Experimentation as Learning
Encourage hands-on experimentation as learning, and don’t do it for them! Instead of showing how something is done, ask them to try other ways to see if it will work. Children gain confidence when they learn from hands-on experience. We do not want to smother their innate desire to figure things out.

Be an Observer, not a Critic
Listen to your child, do not judge, criticize, or point to mistakes. The Montessori method has a built-in control of error that allows a child to self-correct if needed without an adult’s intervention or deprecation.

Offer Freedom of Movement and Freedom of Choice
Provide freedom of movement and freedom of choice encourages children to be decision-makers. Offer them an option in the material and the workspace: do they want to do it on the floor mat or the table?m Do they want to stay inside or bring the lesson outdoors?

Present Plenty of Opportunities for Practice! 
With practice, they improve their techniques, making the hard stuff easy to prevent discouragement or loss of interest. Make sure that the learning is challenging (not boring) and straightforward enough to avoid total frustration.

Encourage Creative Problem-Solving Skills
Encourage children to come up with many different solutions to a problem. This thinking opens the mind in various directions and tests the brain’s ability to shift perspective on existing information.

Other Culprits of a Decline in Divergent Thinking Capabilities
What other possible reasons do you think are responsible for the huge drop in divergent thinking ability as we grow older? When people’s underlying capabilities are not being challenged, when we are locked into jobs, titles, or situations that are boring, and the lack of opportunities for creative expression may be largely responsible for the plummet in divergent thinking as we mature.

However, does this excuse us when we teach in ways that are entangled with extrinsic motivation, rewarding copying, and mimicking rather than showing little ones the strategies that highly creative people use when they think?

CITED RESEARCH & SOURCES

 Dr. George Land’s 2011 TedX Talk: In his talk "The Failure Of Success", Dr. George Land gives us a brief history of human innovation and talks about the importance of creativity.

Land, G., & Jarman, B. (1992). Breakpoint and beyond: Mastering the future today. HarperBusiness. 

Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

Robert McGarvey “Creative Thinking” USAIR, June 1990, p. 36

TwentyOneToys: Study Shows We are Born Creative Geniuses but the "Education" System Dumbs Us Down

Children Are Born Creative Geniuses Montessori From The Heart

TEDxTucson George Land The Failure Of Success

Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

New Episode Every MONDAY & THURSDAY

Catch Up On Recent Episodes

Write your awesome label here.

Your Stories

#Parenting #Transformation #EarlyYears

Love this! Thank you for this episode Anya! l appreciate the tips for how to encourage creativity.
I love the idea of using hands-on learning and experimentation, imagination, senses, asking open-ended questions, observing, offering freedom in choices, having them practice, problem-solve, and letting them fail!

Kayla Linares

Exactly What Homeschooling
Parents Need! This podcast is a breath of fresh air! Anya's passion is contagious. If you're looking for clarity, confidence, and connection in your homeschooling journey-this is the podcast for you!

Anastasia Larsson

Wow this is amazing! Loved hearing this & yes so true - creativity seems to be snuffed out as we age unless we work to preserve & nourish it & allow it to continue to flourish.

Melanie Beers-Quinn

Write your awesome label here.
Never miss an EPISODE, FREEBIE& NEW RELEASES

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Receive new episodes and news directly to your inbox. Don’t worry, your information is secret safe with us!
Thank you!
Created with