Early education and child art are essential to your little ones being able to express themselves. That’s why your children may act as makeshift interior designers by adding many pictures to your walls during this developmental period. Finger painting, music time, and drawing activities are crucial at this age. Here are ways childhood imagination aids in overall development.
Practice Language
Where do language and art converge? Thanks to cave wall pictures and symbolic characters inside ancient structures like the pyramids of Giza, the world has an understanding of life in these ancient times. In other words, art and language are inseparable. Even Roman numerals use imagery to form a letter that represents sound. So, even when you’re not directly doing art, you’re forming a visual representation of the sound you’re trying to make. Therefore, when children begin doing the tiniest stick figures and finger paints, their child art is taking those first steps into making symbols. Whether it’s things that mean something to them or arbitrary, when it’s time to do formal writing in their language, they’ll be off to a good start.
The use of imagery with language in early childhood education allows children to develop different concepts around language. This child art allows them to express ideas beyond the traditional language itself. Children can connect different imagery to both abstract ideas and concise written language that they’ll continue to develop learning. Some children may be creative enough to form their own language with their symbols and pictures. A child needing developmental disability services may need to rely on various forms of communication, such as nonverbal autistic students. According to the Journal of Autism Studies, a study stated that almost 65% of autistic children who are nonverbal at age 5, remained nonverbal 10 years later.
Understand Professions
Don’t be surprised when your 2-year-old already tells you what they want to be when they grow up. After all, children are exposed to different things and professions from such a young age. They may be infatuated with what their parents do. Many are enthralled with the site of fire trucks or doctors. According to Statistica, the top professions kids aspire to include being a doctor, nurse, vet, musician, actor/actress, gamer and YouTuber.
Your childhood could envision themself as a doctor or musician through their art. Playtime is also the perfect scenario for children to act out these roles with each other. They may also get enthralled with picture books that showcase these different professions. Before children have a full-on language, the art and drawings that they see of these professions can help give them an understanding of what these industries do before they can fully verbalize it. For example, a little kid may say that a doctor can help them with a “boo-boo”. They may also say a musician makes nice “sounds or noises”.
Child art is a common thing for children to participate in. If you notice your child doesn’t grow out of it, they may be serious about pursuing this as a career. Parents need to support those creative skills, as the child can continue to develop them as they grow older. Their creativity can grow into several professions that can include design, art, or even further transition into writing in music. When children show a strong knack for developing their child art, don’t be surprised if they want to pursue the fine arts when older. Ironically, natural child play can provide direct training to become a professional artist one day, whether it’s an illustrator, animator, fine artist, painter, or sculptor. Strong art skills in youth can also make it easy to become a fashion designer or develop into architecture if they combine it with math skills. Your child may want to further develop seriously by attending a visual or performing art school.
Dream of Future Aspirations
Your child’s imagination allows them to dream and dream big. Those dreams can turn into becoming the first person in the family to graduate from college. They may one day receive a prestigious award, such as an Oscar, or a literary prize. Their imagination may see them traveling the world, and they can make it happen. When they read books that talk about different adventures, such as Gulliver’s Travels, it can help foster their imagination further. When you combine child art production, reading time, role-playing, and education, these all add to what children can envision for themselves. A kid living in a small city may one day see themselves in a big international metropolis, after reading the book, New York Is My Playground. This book was built for toddlers and young kids as a vibrant, visual introduction to life in the Big Apple. On the other hand, American kids may dream of going abroad after reading a book, such as A Dublin Fairytale. This book is a mock modern Irish version of the classic fable Little Red Riding Hood. Such reading can help foster the idea of traveling, new languages, and learning about different cultures and places before they set foot on the first airplane later on. A developing childhood may be inspired to re-envision well-known stories in their own eyes, using a place they’re at now as the starting point. Then, they can further create stories, ideas, products, and future companies from scratch as well. This literary art can help children find inspiration and make it their own.
Aid in Better Socialization
Creative play and imagination can help your child develop better socialization skills. After all, imaginative activities make it easier for children to have an open mind and cooperate in groups. Kids are more likely to want to play with others during role-play scenarios. For example, when it comes to being a doctor and patient, you need at least two kids to do it. Children may have a fake band if they dream of becoming musicians. As a result, their playtime can be more fun and engaging as they get an idea of how real-life situations are when interacting in different scenarios, such as going shopping or going to the doctor.
When children are in a thriving environment that encourages them to produce child art and stories, read books, and play music, they’re creating imaginary worlds with different rules. Regardless of where they live or their culture, they can have different perspectives on the lives of others. As a result, it’s easier for them to have empathy for other kids and support them as a good friend or family member. When having a summer party with the kids at the swimming pool, overnight sleepover, or summer camp, you may see the results of how well creativity could help them manage being together.
Express Feelings
Children tend to be open with their feelings, as they have not been socialized to hide them yet. While children are quick to show when they’re happy, sad, hungry, or sleeping, they may not always have a way to verbalize things beyond that until they build their vocabulary. According to KidsHealth, your 2-year-old should have a vocabulary of about 50 words. That’s where child art and other creative methods come in. Your child may be going through emotional issues due to upheaval or changes at home. If the parents have decided to add an addition by way of a surro baby or adopt a baby, it may leave the child feeling like they’re left out. While parents may get caught up in the addition of a new baby, getting an insight into how their older child feels can help them ensure that there are no emotional problems or feelings of neglect developing. What about the case of divorce.? Divorce doesn’t affect couples but also affects children. A child custody attorney or therapist may use art as a way to get a child to express how they feel about one parent and who will be the best one to live with.
Reduce Screen Dependence
Over 804 million kids over the age of 14 have a cellphone, according to SellCell. Of course, this statistic doesn’t include the number of children who also rely on iPads and laptops, enjoy watching television or Netflix, and spend hours playing video games. In other words, children are attached to screen devices more than ever. Remember, this generation and future ones are born with the Internet and mobile devices as a part of society. Therefore, parents and educators may have to try extra hard to foster creativity by way of art, reading, writing, and not just being a consumer of created products online. When you foster a love of imagination and creativity in a child at a young age and continue to support it, you allow them to nourish that throughout their life. Therefore, you’ll have a child more likely to enjoy reading books, writing plays, having discussions face-to-face, and not having her entire world wrapped up in their cell phone or the latest meme. These children are less likely to get bored because the electricity went out. They’ll be able to entertain themselves and create adventures, projects, and other things that keep their minds and bodies busy.
Foster Curiosity
A creative child is often a curious one. When someone is curious, they want to figure things out. That’s the type of child that may take a toaster apart just to put it back together again. They want to see how things work and how they can make things work better than they do now. In other words, these are the children who are current and future inventors. From discovering that the world was round, to discovering electricity, to landing on the moon, all these marvels happened because someone was curious enough to make it happen. That spark of curiosity, creativity, and imagination can start as simple as a child drawing imaginary characters in kindergarten. According to NCBI, curiosity is a highly important, but often unrecognized aspect of high academic achievement later on.
Incorporate Other Subjects
There are many subjects one can teach while allowing childhood creativity to grow. Math, reading, science, and history can be enhanced with the use of imagination. Children can begin acting out scenes from history, a fictional book, or a play. When they act these things out, they’ll be much more likely to remember them and retain this information as part of their long-term knowledge. Child art sessions can capture things they see in the natural world, such as the life and death of a flower or the projected growth process of a puppy to a grown dog. Children can make math learning fun by working with colorful shapes they use to count and subtract.
Develop Love of the World
Thanks to the encouragement of the child and imagination your little one can express and develop their love of this beautiful planet Earth. Take children outside on field trips, to the zoo, the park, or even their backyard to let children see insects and other animals in motion. Children can observe the different species of flowers and how insects pollinate them to continue the ecosystem. What child doesn’t love animals? When children go to a puppy class, it can let them have fun with furry and friendly puppies who they can eventually watch develop into grown dogs. It may foster wonderment about their future development into adulthood. Plus, for any child wants to get into vet services, something such as a fun puppy class is a way for kids to role-play this job.
There is no limit to the benefits of childhood imagination, creativity, and its use of various art. Fostering this from the early education days and throughout their educational cycle can help children love and understand the world. It can be used to make a range of subjects more interesting and assessable, and it could be the starting point when children role-play careers they’ll eventually get into. Hopefully, this article has given parents and teachers a better understanding of why childhood creativity should always be encouraged and how it could benefit them long into adulthood.
