Children are naturally inquisitive and creative; indeed, these are distinct characteristic of emergent learners. However, if their inquisitiveness and creativity are not natures, their higher cognitive skills may be delayed or hindered. Impediments to their critical and creative thinking maybe traced from different sources. Barriers, however, can serve as reference in designing activities and in providing opportunities to develop young learners.
Children who are not exposed to challenging activities which pose may not successfully develop their critical and creative thinking skills. These children may prefer easier tasks and literal questions.
Some children are not developed as critical and creative thinking learners because they are made comfortable with simple answer and are confined to easy activities. Thus, they do not try other learning strategies. Instead, they stick to their own belief and are conditioned to resist change or adopt other learning styles, since they are soaked into oversimplification.
Another reason is allowing children to believe in something that is not true simply because they want it to be true. They stick to wishful thinking. They are always in search for good or bad, right or wrong, which remain fixed in their thinking that may hinder critical thinking, once their fixed thoughts are not filtered by literate adults. What literate adults can do instead to promote the critical and creative thinking of young learners is to guide their thoughts, ideas and opinions and to enrich them with substantial literacy materials and appropriate literacy situations.