What are the Benefits of Art for Children?
Creativity is vital to our life essence, our children's success, and our well-being in this world. Creative thinking must be encouraged and celebrated throughout our life, starting from a young age, since it engages the mind and frees us in a way that makes us connect with ourselves and should be reinforced for children.
Without creativity, there is no innovation. And our world develops through the advancement of each aspect. Creativity is often associated with art in the sense that, on the one hand, art requires creativity; on the other hand, art boosts creativity. Therefore, art benefits for children are myriad since it affects all aspects of their life while growing up.
From a young age, kids naturally communicate through art creation. Creating art isn't just a fun activity; it has various unique, positive effects on young children that other activities don't provide.
According to the International Child Art Foundation, "Research indicates that a child exposed to the arts acquires a special ability to think creatively, be original, discover, innovate, and create intellectual property—key attributes for individual success and social prosperity." Thus, art benefits for children can involve the following:
Refines Motor Skills
As children experiment and create by squishing paint between their fingers, combining colours and materials, producing clay work, or sketching from their imagination or friends and relatives, their brain synapses fire away. For example, when a child is doing something creative, such as making a mosaic piece, most of their senses are engaged.
Placing colourful tiles and beads together, installing the tiles in a specific order while following a design pattern, mixing clay and putting it on a lamp or controlling a glue stick —all of these tasks require increasing amounts of dexterity. They are frequently amused by the unexpected problems they face when working with art materials, and the fun and rewards they receive make children want to do them again and again. As youngsters engage in art activities, their fine motor skills increase and sharpen, resulting in enormous art benefits for children.
Increases Academic Performance
Performing art can make absorbing new knowledge much more uncomplicated, making processing learning more efficient. It enables alternative ways of thinking while allowing for non-linear thinking, which is one of the art benefits for children.
More and more academic research shows that creativity and creative thinking are associated with academic performance; it generally includes divergent and convergent thinking. Using imagination to come up with new and innovative ideas enables the kids to think outside the box, come up with novel solutions, and make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas.
Strengthens Decision-Making Skills
When children are cheered to make their own decisions, they lose their fear of thinking independently without their comfort zone. They understand that they can innovate and interpret the world around them, making them independent and creative thinkers and innovators.
Encouraging your child to seek their favourite art forms, such as painting, handcrafting, making music, and making shapes and patterns, can open up their imagination and train their decision-making skills. One of the children's most influential art benefits is not being afraid of making mistakes and encouraging others without developing an unhealthy fear of failure.
Art Promotes Self-Esteem and Self-Expression
Another profound art benefit for children, and one of the most important ones, is nurturing the child's confidence. Creative artwork allows the recognition of their uniqueness and identity, and it nurtures the children's self-esteem. Performing any art helps the children and us to draw out what is already there within, the hidden talents, inner capacities, and expressions of passions, which are fundamental in the children's development.
Art is a form of self-expression, and this self-expression helps the children communicate their feelings in the most positive way and creates self-confidence and a sense of belonging to the world. This aspect is crucial for developing their identity, making art the medium through which they can freely express themselves and examine their strengths and interests.
When children express themselves through art, they gradually test different possibilities and work through challenges. They feel good while creating something or even acting in a role; they learn the concept of sharing while doing an art activity in a group, taking turns and appreciating one another's efforts. Such things can help them develop positive mental health and good self-esteem that can highly benefit them.
Helps Develop Visual-Spatial Processing
Visual-Spatial Processing is the capacity to imagine or visualize the positions of objects, shapes, and spatial relations with one another in a person's mind. It is simply the ability to perform spatial visualization and spatial reasoning in the head.
This means that visual learning and pictures are essential in processing information. Visual-spatial learners often view concepts as whole ideas rather than separate steps or details. This means that when your children make any form of art, such as making a mosaic table lamp, they learn to communicate visually since they create the geometrical shapes to implement them physically. Creative work is one of the early forms of training the brain to develop successful special reasoning. Parents should expose their children early on to making crafts and art objects as well as DIY home projects where the children learn how to make things themselves and develop ways to process the craft understanding in their mind.
The Importance of Art in the School
All of these points we have discussed regarding the art benefits for children lead us to the importance of including art in school and daily education and incorporating creative art workshops in schools to expose the kids to different forms of self-expression. Creativity is the most crucial element of learning, and creative thinking helps students to think beyond conventional ideas and open their imaginations.
Creative activities such as hand-making workshops, making clay work, or mosaic items from tiles and grout can be implemented as part of the educational program and during recess. By utilizing the artistic, experimental method of teaching, schools will develop thinkers who can use their strengths and courage to explore their varied interests. It is essential and helpful for young learners to learn these creative methods to become able to think independently and creatively in the future.
It has been revealed thru different studies that implementing innovative activities during the last part of the school day can help students maintain their focus. Creativity can be encouraged in every student by integrating it into their learning experiences. Students with the right mix of creativity and curriculum are more likely to learn new things and be innovative.
According to a study published by Scientific American Magazine, researchers showed that creative artwork exercises a handful of neural networks in the brain. Keeping the mind active is like working out the brain muscle. Art cannot just keep the brain healthier but also can be a therapy for kids to eliminate stress development at an early age, making art one of the significant benefits for children.
Children could be trained to use their creativity freely at a young age. There will be a higher possibility for them to succeed in life since it is an act of building the characteristic of independence. We need to work on that to create a healthy, successful generation full of powerful creativity and innovation that will be required to make the world a better space.
You can read our previous article from https://www.artmasterclass.com.au/blogs/news/famous-artists-with-disabilities.