Many factors can affect childhood development. For kids to grow up to become well-rounded individuals, they will need more than physical activities and typical academic subjects to fill up their daily schedules.
Parents should also introduce their children to more artistic pursuits. Children picking up the occasional instrument, clay, or markersfor blending and coloring can develop their innate talents and explore the possibilities of their skills. One of these could be a better means of self-expression.
But there’s more to it than that. But how much could the Arts influence how children learn and develop?
- Instills Values – The Arts are valuable to a child’s development because of its nature as a learning aid. As kids spend more time participating in the different art forms, they learn more than perfecting their respective mediums. They are also taught different values that will be useful to them even as adults.
- Teaches Perseverance – Perseverance is often mistaken for persistence. While both are lovely values to have, perseverance has more to do with the child’s commitment to see things through to the end despite the many failures they might encounter. This value is learned through different mediums since no art comes out perfect the first time around.
- Imparts Discipline – People don’t become masters of the Arts overnight. A pianist doesn’t become a virtuoso after playing one piece, and it’s the same with a painter after one painting. It takes time to build up artistic skills, and children will need to learn the discipline that it takes to work on the medium they have chosen continuously.
- Defines Accountability – Failures play huge parts in the creative process, regardless of one’s chosen medium. As they participate in artistic activities, children will slowly learn the importance of taking responsibility for their actions. This applies not only to individual works but to collaborative ones as well. Every action they make has consequences, and over time they will realize that it’s good to own up to mistakes, learn from them, and then move on.
- Enhances Confidence – Children drawn to the theater scene will realize there’s more to it than memorizing lines and learning choreography. As their skill of acting and effectively delivering lines improve, they slowly gain the confidence that they will need to showcase what they’ve learned in front of huge groups of people that consist of more than their peers.
- Teaches Integrity – Younger children often learn skills through mimicry. As their skills develop, they are then encouraged to make pieces that flesh out their imagination. By doing art, they learn the importance of not taking another person’s work and passing it off as their own. Instead, they can take inspiration from existing works and giving credit where credit is due.
- Develops Uniqueness – Inspiration is important in the world of art. By studying and learning more about existing works, children can gradually create their styles — which are often a mixture of their personalities and the work they are want to do. This style continues to develop as they age, allowing their work to stand out from the works of other artists.
Often, these values work hand-in-hand with each other. As time goes on, many children will learn as they continue to explore everything that their selected media could offer.
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