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Blocks are considered the perfect creative learning toys, since they allow children to build without direction or boundaries. In a recent study at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, researchers gave families with toddlers a set of wooden blocks and suggestions for “blocktivities” they could do together. Six months later, the kids with the blocks scored 15 percent higher in a language-development test than a control group of children who did not have them. But building toys are just one way to unleash your child’s imagination. To raise a creative child, you need to think out of the box yourself.

1. Schedule downtime

Set aside at least an hour a day for unstructured play with your child, even if it means cutting down on his other activities. Do not set an agenda - let your child lead you.

2. Be a Curious and Adventurous Family

Spice up dinner time by serving a new food once a week. Visit a new park in your town instead of the same old playground. Walk the long way home from the market and point out surprising things you see along the way. When you approach the unknown with curiosity and a keen eye, you will teach your kids to do the same.

3. Try Reinventing Everyday Objects

Ask your child to help you get together some empty cardboard cartons. Have her pile them up to make a fort or a building. Put some pulses in a bottle and let her use it as a noisemaker. Or make a puppet out of an old sock. Soon your child will start coming up with her own creative play possibilities.

4. Get Out of Your House and Explore

Take a barefoot walk across different surfaces - damp grass, warm pavement, dry sand - and ask your child how each one feels. Or have your little explore look under leaves and rocks and describe what he finds. Take along a box so he can save his booty for future art or science projects.

5. Unplug Her Play

To reduce TV viewing, keep your set in a closed cabinet and stash the remote out of reach. Cut down on the electronic toys too. Basic games are best: Play peekaboo with your baby and let her bang pots and pans to make music. Cut window flaps in a cardboard box so your toddler can pretend that it is a house or a bus. Or put some water in a small plastic bucket and leave out some washable baby dolls, a towel and fresh outfits so your preschooler can pretend she is bathing her baby.

6. Tell Tales

Hearing you make up stories gives your child the tools and inspiration to come up with his own flights of fancy. Use different voices for each character. Once your child knows a tale well, have him invent a new ending. Or make up a story together - you start and have him take over when he is ready.

7. Set a Silly Example

Wear a plastic tiara when you do the laundry or a chef’s hat when you cook. Change your voice and behavior to match the costume. Seeing you having fun will encourage your child to try on different personalities too.

8. Get Together With Other Kids

By age two and a half, your child is ready to play with children, not just alongside them. Children around her make her explore her own fantasy world, negotiate for toys and turf and make friends on her own. Do not plan activities or interfere with her play unless it is really necessary (such as when one child is being too rough).

9. Expose Your Child to The Arts

Taking your toddler to a museum can get him excited about drawing his own masterpiece. Music provides a creative outlet for a child’s emotions and helps coping with the stress.

10. Choose a Preschool Very Carefully

There is nothing wrong with teaching a preschooler the ABCs and 123s. But stay clear of programs in which
kids spend most of the day following a set curriculum, Young kids do best in a play-based learning environment - says David Elkind, Ph.D., author of The Power of Play. Make sure your child has lots of choices - such as making art projects, putting together puzzles and building castles. Ask the teacher about her philosophy, she should avoid stepping in and suggesting what to do unless a child asks for help.

11. Teach Your Child Emotional Resilience

Teach your child to look at the funny side. Blunders happen but that should not bring a quick tear. When 6-year-old Franny Perl’s ice-cream soda - a root-beer float - was knocked over by the wind at the beach, her mother, Erica, came up with a word to describe the event: ‘a floatknocker’. “Someone shared his drink with Franny, but what really cheered her up was using the word ‘floatknocker’ over and again”, says the mom from Washington D.C., US. By using humor creatively, Erica showed her daughter how to bounce back from disappointment. You can be equally witty and tickle your child’s funny bone. Smile and say, “That’s what I call a real butterscorch” when your child is upset that her butterscotch ice cream has melted in the heat or “pudding puddle” when she has accidentally split her pudding on the floor.

12. Take Toys to the Park

Playgrounds are great for getting your kids exercise, but they may not have the tools to spark their imagination. So pack colored chalk for drawing on the pavement, soap bubbles for blowing and toys for sharing. You might also bring along face paint so you can transform your child into his favorite animal and have him act out the part.

13. Nurture Your Little Picasso

Art helps to bring out your child’s creative potential so encourage her to draw and paint. But pre-cut shapes and coloring pages are not always a great idea because they tend to restrict a child’s imagination. It is a good idea to set aside an area where your child can draw, paint and sculpt whenever she wants. Beth Lerman turned part of her garage into an art studio when her daughter turned 3. “There’s a big workbench with paint, rolls of white paper, glitter, glue sticks, brushes, markers, crayons and other supplies”, says the mom from Dallas, US. “It is Jamie’s favorite place, because she can be creative and make a mess”.

Back from work early? Baby Asleep? Child at playdate? Moms and dads, take a break.

1. REVIVE A HOBBY
Revisit a hobby you had set aside when the baby was born or the kids were growing up, like a craft, playing a musical instrument, or gardening - anything you used to enjoy. Go on - paint a pot, compose a new tune, click a few table-top photographs or plant a succulent that will tolerate a little forgetfulness.

2. GIGGLE, CHUCKLE, LAUGH
Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers and makes you feel good. Pick up a joke book, watch a recorded stand-up comic show, or try any of these sites:

3. DAYDREAM WITHOUT A DOUBT
Swing away in the kid’s park and make your wish happen in your head first. In book Positive Imaging, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale says that visualizing is a kind of “laser beam of the imagination … in which the desired goal or outcome is pictured so vividly that the unconscious mind accepts it and is activated by it”.

4. TAKE A WALK
Take a walk without a wallet, without a shopping bag, without a destination, without worries. Stroll along, people-watch, notice the trees and grass, the shape of the clouds in the sky. Hold hands, just enjoy the journey.

5. CATCH UP WITH FRIENDS
Have a long, uninterrupted heart-to-heart with a friend or make quick five-minute catch-up calls to three or four different friends. When did you last do that without having the TV or the children as background noise?

6. ESCAPE TO YOUR LOO SALON
Pamper yourself now that you have the chance. Apply a facial mask, lather your hands with a moisturizer, soak your feet in a tub of warm water and then slather them with foot cream too. Put an eye-pack on and lie back in the recliner for 15 minutes. Then shower it all off. Dads, just laze and gaze at her.

7. MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR
It takes women 10-20 minutes and married men seven minutes to reach an orgasm, on an average, say studies. If you are not that goal-oriented, take time off anyway for reconnecting in bed.

8. DRAW A DREAM HOUSE
Seriously, put it all down on a sheet of paper - room by room, wall by wall, door by door - marking out the details for future use. Or do it just for fun. There is always a great chance of learning something out of your rough sketches and drawings. The reason: when you think that you are putting down something just for fun, your mind gets involved greatly and set-aside your worries and expenses involved. You purely listen to your heart and do what you feel like doing NOT what you ‘can do’.

9. TONE YOURSELF IN TWENTY
“Side stretches and upper body twists are great for stress relief and a tired back”. Stand with your feet hip-distance apart and your arms stretched above your head, keeping your fingers overlocked. Stretch and bend to the right and then to the left. Repeat 12 times. Lower your arms to shoulder level, stretched out to the side. Twist your body to the right and then to the left. Repeat 12 times.

10. MAKE A SHORT VIDEO
Upload all those photos hibernating in your computer along with the music you want on www.animoto.com. The website marries the photographs and the music, creating a sharable video. Short videos are for free. For putting together a simple slideshow, log on to www.flickrshow.com and www.picasa.google.com.

11. TELESCOPE YOUR LIFE
Imagine your life is over and take stock of what you have achieved. Write down your biggest achievements and how you think the world will remember you or think of you: This will help you focus on what else you like to accomplish.

12. CENTER YOURSELF
“Usually your body is in one place and the mind elsewhere: Meditation is about making your mind rest and be one with the body”. Enjoy a green tea meditation: Make a cup of green tea, very mindfully, being aware of every little action, the textures, the fragrance … When you sit down to sip it, think of where the tea leaves came from (earth), where the water came from (rain), where the cup came from … and you will feel ‘one’ with the whole universe.

13. SERVE IT UP
Whip up a fruity smoothie, a mango smoothie or hot chocolate just for yourself. The good part? You don’t have the kids demanding to share it.

14. PLAN THAT FANTASY VACATION
Outline your dream vacation. It will be something to look forward to on tough days. Call your travel agent and ask him to check hotel and travel options for your chosen destination, or visit CheapCarribean.com to check some out yourself.

15. WRITE A LETTER
The old-fashioned kind. With paper and a pen. Think of who you want to write it to - grandmother, an aunt, a childhood friend, a nephew or even your spouse. Writing can be therapeutic.

16. FEED YOUR BRAIN
Go for some ‘mindercises’. Read a short story, look at optical illusions, solve a puzzle, take a quiz. Test your spouse. Keep collecting photocopies, cut-outs or printouts of interesting articles and mind-bogglers in a folder for an opportune 20 minutes.

17. DANCE AWAY
Loosen those limbs. You need some ‘dancercise’. Put on some music and get jiggy with it. Want to learn belly-dancing or hip-hop? Goto DDRgame.com and get into the groove with all the right moves.

18. BE GOOD AND FAMOUS
On www.freerice.com, you match words with meanings in a multiple-choice format and for every word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to end world hunger. Then goto www.makemymag.com to see your face on the cover of a magazine.

19. MAKE A TIME CAPSULE
Put into a jar or a box all the things that symbolize your life at this stage - a broken alarm clock? A school report? A hair clip? A tiffin box? - and hide it somewhere. Next year, do this again. You will be surprised at how priorities can change.

20. LEARN SOMETHING NEW
Want to learn yo-yo skills, how to paint a portrait, wear red lipstick or barbecue like a chef? Experts on www.monkeysee.com tell you everything from how to braid your hair to how to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Do you, like me, find your voice suddenly sounding shrill and strident when you are ticking off your child, like a peacock frantic for rain? Of course, we all want our kids to be disciplined, but, admit it-we tend to overshoot. I have found an easy way to check this: Count how many times you say "No!" to your child in a day. Sigh, I’m guilty off and on. For those days and every other, this site will bring you cheer and ease to yes-and-no issues with children. Reading other fun mom’s experiences (get any book by writer-columnist Erma Bombeck ) helps you take the sharp edge off parenting.

Then again, it gets tough to be a funny and sunny TV parent after a hard day, coming home to yo-yo kids (one of them wants to play name-place-animal-game; the other one wants to make a Scooby Strings necklace). Often my day at work runs full tilt into my home time with only the car ride in between, during which I catch up with friends on the phone. It’s hard to find those 20 minutes to unwind.

It’s not easy being the mother of two bundles of energy and a wife of top-of-the-pops. Then the saying, "One kid is fun; two are more fun. It’s a nonstop comedy of errors!". Ever wonder why toddlers try to open the same locked cupboard day after day? Or why, when you see her heading for the floor lamp and say, "No, honey, that’s dangerous," she starts running in a desperate attempt to get there before you do? The explanation is simple: One-year-olds are fueled by an insatiable curiosity about the world around them. "Exploring helps them learn and feeds their brain development," says Dr. Harvey Karp M.D., author of The Happiest Toddler on the Block . Discovering new things also helps your child feel in control, which helps to boost her confidence. Chances are your child is already blazing her own trails. But there’s plenty you can do to make it more fun and educational. Those things which may be ’same old jobs’ for you, but to your child they are fresh and fascinating.

FOLLOW YOUR KID’S LEAD

Toddlers/kids investigate things at their own pace and according to their individual interests. But many 1-year-olds like to dawdle-for good reason. "They are trying to make sense of things, so they take their time examining them", says Dr. Robin Gaines Lanzi , PH.D., Assistant Professor of Human Science and Research Director, Center of Health and Education, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., US. Let your child discover things on his own and learn new skills (such as pushing the buttons on a toy). And don’t rush him.

STIMULATE YOUR KID’S SENSES

"Toddlers explore with their whole body", says Andrew Ackerman, Executive Director, Children’s Museum of Manhattan, New York, US. Take advantage of this by utilizing your child’s sense of touch, which is especially important at this age. Point out and identify various textures ("Feel how rough the tree bark is" or "The dog’s fur is so soft"). Look for ways to stimulate her other sense too: "The flowers smell very sweet" or "Whoa, that drum is loud" or "Let’s name all the different colors in that sunset".

GO ON AN ADVENTURE TOGETHER

Taking your little explorer outdoors is one of the best things you can do. A park or a hiking trail will spark his curiosity in a boundary-free environment. But you don’t even need to go that far. A simple stroll can turn into an adventure if you stop along the way to jump into a rain puddle or look at fallen leaves. Hunting for differently shaped and colored pebbles is another good idea of a great outing to the park in the evening. No matter how ordinary those pebbles may look, but it’s a treasure for your kid. Once your kid realizes that he/she is not supposed to put them in mouth, it’s fun to discover with him how interesting ordinary stones can be.

LET YOUR KID SAFELY EXPLORE (IN THE HOUSE)

There’s a reason to lock cupboards: To a toddler, the urge to find out what’s inside closed bins is irresistible. But instead of making them all off-limits, Dr. Lanzi suggests setting aside one drawer is okay for your child to investigate. Fill it with things that are safe and age-appropriate, such as light pots and pans, plastic bowls and spoons, bits and pieces of cloth and shells. "You might also leave out some boxes your child can climb on, crawl in and stack", says Dr. Joanne Baum, Ph.D., author of Got the Baby Where’s the Manual ?.

GIVE YOUR KID AN OPPORTUNITY TO PEOPLE-WATCH

Your toddler is aware that he’s a separate being and he’s interested in watching what other people do. Demonstrating actions in front of him (such as picking up the phone, using a toothbrush or throwing a ball) will help him learn to imitate them. Your child will also benefit from seeing other toddlers at the park. Even if he doesn’t join in, he will enjoy observing his peers. Also, let him watch you do chores, such as whipping up an omelet, hammering a nail into the wall or cleaning the aquarium. Remember, it’s all new, fresh and fascinating for your kid, may be ’same old job’ for you.