Most kids only write for grades. It’s rare to find children
who write to fulfill their creative needs or to pour their hearts out. If you
ask schoolchildren how they feel about writing, most of them will sigh and tell
you just how they dislike writing.

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One of the culprits for students’ dislike of writing is
probably the many rules teachers give for any kind of writing task. Some
teachers won’t even allow students to deviate even the slightest bit from the
task directives.

Should Writing Rules Apply to Kids?

Writing rules exist for various reasons. One of the reasons
is to make kids’ writing easier to read.

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Have you ever seen kids writing a wall of text with
seemingly no punctuation marks whatsoever? We sure have. Have you also seen
kids arranging the sentences in their writing assignments like a list, i.e. one
sentence per line? We have seen that too.

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Teaching kids to write in paragraphs where one paragraph
contains only one main idea is
essential. It’s a skill that everybody should have. If you see just how many
college students unable to grasp this concept, you’ll agree on how important it
is to practice this skill at an early age.

How many rules are too many?

Children
begin learning the rules of writing and reading at the age of 3 to 5 years.
Once they’re in school, they’re exposed to even more rules aiming to improve
the children’s reading and writing competency. Often times, children feel like
the rules are overwhelming.

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For assignments like essays and scientific papers, following
strict rules is a given. But what about the other types of writing? For
example, when a teacher asks his students to write a descriptive text about
their holidays, should the teacher put so much focus on grammar, spelling, and
other requirements? Should the goal be to get as high grade as possible? Or
should teachers let their students’ minds roam free?

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Parents and teachers may not even realize that strict rules
are binding the children’s creativity. Kids can’t pour out their thoughts into
writing because they’re worried about breaking the rules. Being constrained like
this may even lead to frustration and make children despise the idea of writing
for fun.

Balancing it out

One solution is to give kids free writing time when we let kids be kids. We follow their rules
instead of the other way around. Just let the children write whatever they have
in mind using whatever approach they want. Even seasoned writers break writing
rules once in a while, so why not let kids do the same.

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The teachers’ role in free writing time is to give feedback on the content without
worrying about the structure, grammatical accuracy, and other literary
techniques. As long as you get the message, then it’s all good. In fact,
according to the process-writing
approach, focusing on language errors will not improve students’ writing.

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Of course, when it’s time to write anything essential for
grading, teachers must let the kids know what rules apply for the task. When
possible,
let the kids fix their own grammar and spelling mistakes using online
tools. That way teachers can focus on fixing the other specific aspects of the
task.

Conclusion

Kids are creative, and every teacher and parent knows that
very well. To ensure that creativity won’t wilt due to excessive rules, it’s OK
to let kids loose now and then. Teachers should weigh the pros and cons of giving
directives when it comes to creative writing. In the end, it’s better to focus
on the process than the product.