Integrity Journal of Arts and Humanities

Creativity is a part of every individual regardless of age. It begins at a very early age in children where they use both conscious and unconscious effort in dealing with feelings and ideas; this comes into realization when producing desired forms of expression. To a child, creation is personalized; it is personal in the sense that one’s experience is qualitative, meaning that a vital confrontation has occurred between the child and his/her perception and the understanding of what the child’s senses are communicating. The problem in today’s world children face many crises, it could be crises from broken homes, abuse or neglect or crises in general like floods, fire which are natural, or man-made crises like terrorism, which seems to be very common today. It is not surprising to find a large number of children who have experienced at least one of such crisis at one point or another. Often children respond to crises by acting out, becoming angry and frustrated as they feel out of control because of the circumstances they find themselves. The objective of this paper is to highlight the need to nurture children’s creativity and to be aware of the best ways to help them learn and develop their creative abilities during times of crisis. Children express their feelings by drawing a picture, writing a poem or story or even singing about how they feel. Participants for this study were children in Maiduguri Metropolis Borno State who have and continue to experience varied forms of crises. These are children who have witnessed war, destruction of their homes and death, abductions and abuse of loved ones. The paper provided an understanding that exposing the child to a creative atmosphere and letting the ‘child’ out of the ‘child’ within a ‘safe space’ may enhance the child’s all-round development. The philosophy of this research highlighted the need to harness children’s drawings and create awareness of the best ways to help them learn and develop their creative abilities in times of crisis.