How to Promote Your Child’s Creative Art Expression
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Most parents want to promote their child's creative art expression. Are you one of them?
Unfortunately, the terms arts and crafts are used interchangeably. And craft projects are often presented as art activities. To distinguish between these two terms, let's look at the dictionary definition:
arts = the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture
crafts = an activity involving skill in making things by hand
To make it clear. There is nothing wrong with craft projects. But if you want to promote your child’s creativity, you need to understand the difference between the two.
4 Tips to promote creative art expression:
1. Provide Tools
Offer your child art tools such as a child-sized easel, paint, brushes, crayons, paper, scissors, watercolors.
Look for quality tools that are safe to use and make sure your child can manipulate them well.
For instance, a toddler will do better with chunky crayons than with regular thin crayons. The chunky crayons fit your toddler's hands better. And they don't represent such a significant choking hazard. Emma has been using these chunky crayons since she was 15 months. Not only do they work great, but they're also non-toxic.
Avoid precutting things that your child has to assemble in a particular order. Putting things together in a specific order would be considered crafts. And this activity doesn't have much to do with the child's creative expression. The same goes for art kits and coloring books. The coloring books suggest that your child needs to stay within given lines. When the child is using plain paper and crayons, his creativity has no borders.
2. Show your child how to use the tools
For example, demonstrate how to use a brush with paint. Paint a small line with the brush. Focus on slow and graceful movements, and avoid talking unnecessarily.
Don't paint a whole house or the Sun when showing your child how to use a tool. Your child could feel discouraged to try because she knows she cannot create anything close to your painting (drawing). Remember that you want to see her creativity emerge instead of showing off your art skills.
3. Let your child explore different tools and materials
Let him create as he wishes. The focus here is on the process. Your child can create anything he wants to, and his artwork doesn't need to make any sense to other adults.
Don't ask your child to copy someone else's artwork. I have seen this practice happening in some preschools. A teacher introduces a famous artist to the children, for instance, Picasso. The children look at his artwork and are asked to copy one of his masterpieces. The teacher gives children step-by-step directions on how to do that. As you can see, copying Picasso's painting is about following directions. It's not about your child's creative art expression. The focus here is solely on the final product. I want to stress that there is nothing wrong if your child wants to copy someone else's artwork. But keep in mind that it's not his creative expression.
4. Let your child tell you more about their artwork if they want to
"This is beautiful."
"You're so talented/artistic."
"Is this grass? It must be grass because it's green."
Does any of the sentences above sound familiar to you? You're not alone. A lot of parents have a hard time refrain from commenting on their child's artwork. The problem with assessing your child's artwork is that even well-meant words such as "beautiful painting" can interfere with your child's intrinsic motivation. Your child might start mass-producing artwork just to get praise from you.
Read more about praising here: Why You Want to Stop Saying Good Job to Your Kids
Instead of commenting, describe what you see. For instance: "I see you used red color here." Or ask him: "Would you like to tell me more about your drawing?" Letting them talk (if they want to) will give you more information than trying to guess what their drawing is all about. You might be surprised that the green area in the picture isn't grass at all.
How do you promote your child’s creative art expression?
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