Bring some color to the summer camp experience.
Art can have a powerful and positive impact on a child’s life. The best part is, art is something everyone can participate in along with a sense of belonging, comfort, encouragement, healing, and inspiration. There are endless benefits to creating art. The creative art process can also enhance cognitive abilities, foster greater self-awareness and help children regulate their emotions. There is something beneficial for everyone’s mental health in the world of art!
The art making process allows for expression without words, helps establish safety, creates opportunities for coping, and offers a way to manage feelings, thoughts, and experiences for future exploration and insight and of course healing. Art gives us the ability to express ourselves. Through that expression, we communicate by drawing on our own unique emotions, thoughts and experiences. When you see and study another’s art, you’re seeing the world through their eyes. When you create, you’re letting the world see through yours.
Creating art not only helps with self care, but also self love. The art validates the uniqueness of an individual, which increases a sense of accomplishment and feeling of positive self-worth. At camps it’s also a social experience for kids interacting with others who are different and unique in their own way and they not only make new friendships, but creating art together has also proven to support a sense of social identity, encourages goal-directed behavior, and enhances social resilience. We loves watching the kids grow and create art over the years and all the positive benefits art has provided for them. Art is so very healing and therapeutic.
One approach is to guide kids through art exploration (using different mediums and finding what they enjoy) and encourage them to utilize art as a healthy coping mechanism and as a way to promote positive self-esteem and mental health. This allows children to truly be themselves without judgment. Creating Art with the children and helping them do what they enjoy (fall in love with art), allows them to express emotions through creativity and understand and develop their feelings, which in turn helps their mental health. It’s important to encourage the skills of creativity and imaginative thinking, which are linked to long-term professional success. Art in a sense pushes children to engage in out of the box thinking and can help them hone their creative problem-solving skills.
A child’s mental health and well being, a well as us of all ages, is of utmost importance! All kids can use some form of support and definitely art in our lives! Parents these days seem to be more aware and interested in the holistic world of therapeutic art. After all, art is therapy and is so important for a child’s mental health and wellbeing!
Keep Creating!
Diana Shabtai “MissDee, Psy.D., ATR-BC is a board certified art therapist who obtained a masters degree in clinical art therapy, ma in marriage & family therapy & a doctorate degree in MFT. She is passionate advocate for bringing awareness to the therapeutic benefits of art. Experience studying, working, & educating in the field of psychology & the therapeutic arts for nearly 20 years. she is a contributing writer to jlife magazine.
