Jun 2, 2021
How Art Improves Your Child’s Development during Covid 19
Covid 19 has drastically changed your child’s life. Finding ways to express confusing emotions, experiences, and feelings through art provides a healthy way to deal with the stresses of pandemic life and promotes beautiful self-expression.
Art encourages creativity. When creating an artistic work, whether it is a crayon drawing on a wall or a developed self-portrait, a child is learning to communicate visually. Maybe they are only drawing what happened that day (“mommy and me at the zoo”), or maybe they are communicating something deeper (“today the grandma died and this is me sad”).
Many times, young children are only learning to experiment (“red paint and blue paint mixed together make a new color”) or learning how to properly use an art tool. Creativity is an important skill that is invaluable at school, in the workplace, and in everyday life.
Art increases fine motor skill function. Whether learning how to cut properly with scissors for the first time, learning how to draw, or attempting to control a paintbrush’s strokes on a canvas, a child can learn intricate fine motor skills through the arts that are invaluable to future success.
Art develops problem-solving skills. A child wants to recreate a happy memory visually. These thoughts may run through the child’s head, “Should I use crayons, pencils, or magazine cut-outs? What kind of paper should I use? The glue is not working properly, what will work better?” Art encourages basic and advanced problem-solving skills in a variety of contexts.
Art encourages self-expression. A kindergartner expresses her happiness through a cheerful painting of flowers and sunshine, a misunderstood teen communicates his frustration through a series of morose drawings, or a young cancer patient paints her visions of the afterlife. Each example shows a child learning to portray visually what cannot be said through words or actions. Self-expression is an important human trait manifested in the visual arts.
Art is an effective form of therapy for troubled youth. Many times, when dealing with a student that exhibited uncontrollable anger or emotions, a student can angrily scribble out his/her emotions in bold strokes of color. Art therapy also aids in dealing with grief, depression, the pandemic and abandonment issues.
Multicultural art activities encourage the acceptance of others. Children can learn about other cultures in a safe and age-appropriate manner through the use of fun multicultural arts activities. Whether sewing a set of Latin American worry dolls, learning Japanese calligraphy, exploring aboriginal dream paintings, or creating Haitian metal sculptures, you and your child can explore exciting faraway worlds together through engaging arts activities.
