Drawing, painting and sculpture- Does art truly have therapeutic value for children?
Art certainly comes with ample therapeutic value for kids, something that parents should carefully understand. DIY crafts, art classes, sculpting, painting, basic drawing and other such hobby classes online from a platform like Yellow Class will certainly go a long way towards relaxing and emotionally grounding your child apart from the obvious benefits of skill development, learning and creativity. Art is a powerful part of life, right from drawing something or painting a picture to sculpting a figurine to clay modeling or even indulging in crafts for kids.
A term expressive art comes to mind here. This refers to using modalities involved in arts and crafts for kids and tapping into them for enhancing overall personal growth and development of your children. It will go a long way towards helping children heal from things, reducing stress, trauma and anxiety while also enhancing self-esteem and awareness and also in boosting relationships, behavior regulation and social skill advancement. Such therapies immensely help children deal with any negative scenarios, traumas and other issues. Art helps in encouraging them to release pent-up and locked feelings and emotions that they may not always know how to release otherwise.
Art also helps in positively impacting mood, functioning, behavior and cognition. This is particularly visible in children with learning and other disabilities, behavioral issues, speech impairment, autism, PTSD, development disabilities, ADHD/ADD and other behavioral, mental and related conditions. Expressing through art helps children get back to a sense of normalcy without any judgment while bringing out their individual personalities and emotions and helping them tap into their core strengths alongside.
Children of all ages may not possess language skills necessary for expression but they still have their own individual voices. Art helps them awaken and find the same while ultimately manifesting as a form of release likewise. The imagination of the child is beautifully stimulated while he/she also builds a sense of identity while engaging his/her senses likewise. Children who are more comfortable with social settings will naturally communicate and function way better as adults. Hence, engaging in arts and crafts for kids in a social setting will benefit them tremendously. Art has therapeutic value in that it offers support without any judgment while giving kids an opportunity to truly appreciate the differences between people and things. Drawing and painting among other artistic pursuits will teach children the value of experimentation, solving problems, choices and decision making. They can steadily start picking up the fine art of communicating through visuals and imagining things from a deeper perspective. Studies indicate that art has a direct impact on the neural connections of the brain which acts as the foundation for learning.
This leads to recognition of differences between patterns, reality and the abstract and also in building observations about life and the world while also fostering mental representations of what is imagined and what is real. Children develop extensive thinking and visualization abilities while having fun simultaneously!
