Why we should encourage our children to take part in arts and crafts
The merits of arts and crafts such as drawing and coloring for kids are regularly argued by child development experts, educators and parents alike… especially so for the impact they have on child development. However, it is difficult to disagree with the top three reasons why we should all encourage the children in our care to take part in arts and crafts.
Creativity – If you were to ask a cross section of individuals what is the first personality characteristic that arts and crafts will develop in a young child – most would answer ‘creativity’. And they are correct.Everyone has natural talents & skills and it is certainly possible to improve and boost them… even if you only have a tiny amount of natural talent. Creativity enables your child to try out and benefit from new ideas, options and alternatives in any future career. Kids learn to do things in new and alternate ways and literally profit from thinking “out of the box”.
Perseverance – Perseverance is perhaps the single most important quality for any successful individual – be they a a business person, sportsman or other professional.In fact, most well-known accomplishments in life have been attributed to perseverance alone. Arts and crafts improve everyone’s level of perseverance. For instance, children learn to keep trying until they complete the task, be it a sculpture or a coloring in sheet. If something goes wrong… they are encouraged to perservere by trying different ways and means and the outcome is a wonderful piece of art that they have created.
Concentration – Akin to having perseverance, developing concentration is another quality well-worth having as an individual.Drawing, coloring, sculpting, finger or normal painting and even doodling will definitely teach your child to focus on one specific task at hand… ignoring other distractions. In short they overall concentration will definitely improve.
Even from a young age kids can draw and color – therefore give them blank pieces of paper or coloring in sheets so that they can scribble away to their hearts content whilst also improving their fine motor skills.
For example at sites like Spiderman Coloring you’ll find Spiderman kids as well as coloring pages, funny pics and more.
Little girls on the other hand tend to prefer images of fairies and princesses – however, favorite characters such as those from Disney movies are also hits.
Give your child many opportunities to experience being creative, concentrating and perservering through the fun medium of arts and crafts. Provide them with materials and resources and the occasional special canvas so that they can be creative and feel pride in what they create.
Tags: arts, child development, children, color, crafts, dexterity, draw, education, fine motor skills, parenting
This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under pregnancy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.