How to Nurture a Child’s Artistic Talents?

There’s a lot of talk about how today’s digital age negatively impacts children’s creativity, often taking away their imaginative spark and making them more imitative rather than creative. So, how can we foster a child’s artistic development? Read on to find out!

Let’s start by stepping away from the screen!

Research confirms that children growing up with an excess of screen devices exhibit lower levels of creativity. Time spent in front of tablets or televisions, followed later by the use of social media and passive scrolling, negatively impacts a child’s creativity and originality of thought. Therefore, it’s worth setting limits on screen time—such as up to one hour a day. It’s also important to break this time into 15-20 minute segments so the child isn’t spending the entire hour in front of a screen without a break. Such restrictions will simultaneously allow us to allocate time for other activities with the child, such as those that stimulate their artistic development.

Let’s take care of the child’s needs.

When the phone, tablet, and other electronic distractions are set aside, it’s worth considering whether there is a space in our environment that fosters a child’s artistic development—a place where they can play and create in peace. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for such a space. It all depends on the individual needs of the child. Therefore, it’s important to observe their preferences and create a space where they can work comfortably based on those observations. What should we pay attention to? Here is a list of sample criteria:

• Should the space be isolated from other household members or within their vicinity?
• Should the space be colourful or neutral? What colours, patterns, and materials does the child prefer?
• In what position does the child most often like to work? Standing at an easel, lying on the floor, at a desk, or sitting cross-legged?
• What cartoons, films, and characters does the child like? What are their interests? Perhaps we can enhance the space with printed posters that further stimulate the child’s creativity and motivate them to create!

A child’s mood is very important!

A child who is anxious, upset, sad, or worried won’t be creative even in the most beautiful room in the world. It’s important to be attentive to the child’s emotions and mood. If we notice that they are becoming withdrawn, quiet, worried, or observe any other change in their usual behaviour, we should ask if everything is alright. Encourage them to talk. If the child is at an age where communication is difficult or if they simply struggle to describe their emotions, you can use crayons to facilitate the conversation. Show the child a range of colours and ask which one they feel like today and why.

It’s generally beneficial to establish a regular time each day to talk with your child about their emotions and any potential worries. Most importantly, discussing emotions can also be an engaging artistic experience. Here are some examples of games and creative activities that can create a space for talking about emotions with your child:

1. Problem Eater: Draw an open-mouthed monster on a large A3 sheet. Together with your child, stick post-it notes on the sheet, each with a symbol or description of the difficulty or problem the child is currently dealing with. In moments of distress, the child can “feed” the monster with their problem notes, signalling to you that it’s a good time to talk with them.
2. You can create a jar or a “kid’s power box.” This is a place where every day, you can write down an achievement or positive trait that your child displayed. On difficult days, you can pull out 2-3 notes and read them to your child to remind them of their strengths, talents, and past achievements.

Let’s not program!

The best way to stimulate creativity is freedom and no restrictions!
That is why it is worth creating boxes of variety, i.e. providing your child with a choice of various colours, art accessories such as crayons, paints, plasticine, strings, colourful pieces of materials and giving them space to choose! Here, it is worth hinting that sometimes the most interesting are those toys and gadgets that initially had a completely different function 🙂 in our home. Therefore, we encourage you to collect egg boxes, plastic cups, straws, caps, and toilet paper rolls, because it is from such unusual things that magical children’s projects like to be created!

You don’t have to know what your child likes right away!

Give yourself time! Finding your passion and nurturing your creative spirit can take months. Just like a child exploring new interests, trying different activities is key to discovering their favourite. Artistic skills encompass not just visual arts but also music, dance, and more. How can you encourage a child’s development in these areas? Listen to various music genres together, create your own dance routines, explore vibrant places during walks, dive into diverse cultures and architecture, read illustrated books, memorise lyrics or beliefs, and design outfits together – you can even grab fabric markers and design unique clothes with your child! You can also explore structured artistic programs tailored for children, available in institutions, cultural centres, and online platforms like YouTube. Don’t limit your experiences. Children absorb each new skill eagerly, so seize the opportunity!

Don’t judge, encourage experimentation.

Initial artistic activities can be messy, lacking in aesthetics, and above all, responsible for quickly creating chaos around. Let’s not get upset about the chaos. If we create an association for the child that artistic projects lead to adult anger and frustration, they won’t want to attempt them next time. Cleaning up together can also be great fun! You could set a timer for 5 minutes and say to the child, “I bet we can’t tidy this up in 5 minutes.” This competitive approach can encourage the child to help tidy up.

How to support the physical development of a child? The importance of outdoor play.

Exercise is good for you, especially outdoors! I think we can all agree on that, right? However, while playing outside used to be a regular and natural part of childhood, it’s often now overshadowed by activities like sitting in front of phones or computers. So, how can we ensure children stay physically active outdoors, and why is it important? Let’s discuss that today!

Why is outdoor activity important?

Outdoor activity supports children in many ways. Firstly, the backyard is an unlimited space for running, jumping, climbing, and cycling – all activities that help develop both gross and fine motor skills. Being outdoors allows children to experience different stimuli – the colours, sounds, and smells around them stimulate their senses and, with proper attention, help them learn about the world around them. Moreover, it also stimulates their creativity and imagination!

Outdoor play also provides access to diverse surfaces – it’s not just one perfect flooring in a room. There’s grass, pavement, asphalt, puddles, pebbles, and uneven ground. Therefore, physical activity outdoors also supports the development of coordination and balance in children. And above all, it’s never boring! It’s also important to note that spending time outdoors boosts the production of vitamin D, essential for proper bone development among other things.

Being outdoors is also an ideal space for children to form new relationships. Group play supports the development of social skills among children, and engaging in these activities also contributes positively to their mental well-being.

How to play outside?

When planning games with children, you can use well-known forms of play, such as hide and seek, tag, and bricklayer, as well as new ideas, examples of which can be found on various parenting blogs. We have also prepared our own suggestions for you!

Tip: To encourage children to play more, it is worth using the theme of their favourite fairy tale and include it in the game. For example, replace the role of a bricklayer with a “paw patrol” or hide and seek in “Frozen with Elsa”.

1. Nature Masters – Recognising flowers and trees. We can prepare a card for children with photos of plants that occur in our area and draw a map for them. Their task will be to find them all in the shortest possible time. Toys such as binoculars, magnifying glasses, and compasses may be welcome here, but of course, they are not mandatory.
2. Flying Messages – Play the telephone game using a frisbee. Children sit on the grass and play the traditional telephone game. However, the last person in line must throw the frisbee to the next person in their team after hearing the whispered message.
3. Water agents – This is the perfect fun for warm weather. Place a sprinkler on the hit and set a light stream of water. Like agents going through a maze of lasers, children have to jump over the sprinkler in such a way as to get as little wet as possible.
4. Who’s Like Me – An enjoyable movement game. Children stand in a circle. One child steps into the middle and completes the sentence: “Who’s like me… (example: Likes tomato soup).” The children who identify with the statement must quickly exchange places with someone else in the circle. The person who doesn’t find a new spot in time then moves to the middle of the circle and starts a new round with the sentence “Who’s like me…”
5. Cloud shapes – the perfect game to calm down and stimulate children’s creativity. We lie down on the grass and stare at the clouds. Our task is to observe the clouds and describe the shape we see in them. You can also give children a category of objects to look for in heaven, e.g. animals, furniture or characters from fairy tales.

To sum up, playing outdoors is a great time that is worth organising for your child in various ways. And let’s not worry about the weather! Even a walk in the rain can be a great opportunity and experience for a child! You can then observe the drops through a magnifying glass, for example! Have Fun!

Preparing for school. Shaping the skills needed by a preschooler

How to Prepare Your Child for Starting School? Often, we focus on the list of essential accessories and textbooks, while in reality, the most important factors are what our future first-grader thinks about themselves, their peers, and school, as well as the skills they have to help them adapt to the new environment. So, what supportive beliefs and helpful skills should we cultivate in our child? You’ll learn about this and more in today’s post!

Beliefs About Themselves

Let’s start with what a child thinks about themselves. Self-esteem is a very important factor influencing their adaptation to any new situation. Having positive beliefs about themselves, such as “I am liked,” “I am good enough,” and “I am independent,” allows a child to approach the new school environment with much more courage and confidence. Stable self-esteem and positive self-perception help children form relationships more easily, set boundaries with others, take on safe roles within a group, and absorb knowledge more effectively without fear of failure or rejection.

How to Strengthen a Child’s Self-Esteem? It’s important to remember to compliment and praise with specific descriptions of the child’s behaviour combined with positive reinforcing messages. You can also create situations specifically for praising, where the child has the opportunity to complete a task that enriches them with new skills and constructive self-knowledge. Another helpful idea is to create a “jar of strengths” – a place where you put a note each day highlighting an achievement or positive trait of the child. On a bad day, you and your child can pick out 2-3 notes and read about their strengths, talents, resources, and achievements, thus restoring their positive self-image.

Beliefs about school

It’s important to talk with your child about school, their class, teachers, breaks, lessons – all the new elements they will encounter. These conversations help to verify the child’s perceptions about starting school and ensure they have the most accurate and supportive beliefs on the subject. Often, due to fear of change, children may have a distorted view of school. We can ask if there’s anything they’re worried about and what would need to happen for them to think that going to school and attending is fun.

Social skills

Social skills are what enable a child to form relationships, maintain them, and engage in cooperative and group activities. Conflict resolution is also an important aspect.
How can we cultivate these social skills in a child? Start by observing their interactions with peers. If something concerns you or you notice communication difficulties, help the child understand and correct them appropriately. Educational books about emotions and communication can also be very helpful.
It’s also important to note that attending nursery school naturally equips children with social skills. If you notice any difficulties at this stage, consider discussing your observations with the nursery staff and possibly consulting a psychologist who can recommend suitable methods for working with your child.

Understanding your own emotions

This is a crucial aspect of maintaining a child’s mental health. By having open conversations about emotions with your child, you teach them to seek answers to the following questions:

• What am I feeling?
• What are others feeling?
• What is anger, sadness, and frustration, and how can I recognise these emotions in myself or others?
• Why do we experience negative emotions and how can we cope with them?

Recognising emotions, being able to name them, and regulating them appropriately are essential skills that help children handle stressful, conflicting, or emotionally charged situations, especially in the first months of school.

How to Equip Your Child with This Knowledge? Here are a few steps:

1. Ensure your child knows all the basic emotions and understands that they have the right to feel and express all of them (including anger, sadness, and frustration).
2. Describe emotions with your child, helping them learn to identify these feelings through their own bodily reactions (e.g., noticing how fast their heartbeats when they’re angry, how they breathe, what sensations they feel in their stomach, etc.).
3. Develop a helpful emotion regulation system with your child. This could include spending a moment alone, taking deep breaths, squeezing a stress ball, or doing squats. We’ve previously written about ways to handle negative emotions, and we encourage you to check out that article for more tips!

Cognitive and language skills.

We can be reassured here as well because children finishing nursery school are generally equipped with basic reading and writing skills. We shouldn’t put too much pressure on ourselves or the child. What truly matters is their attitude towards learning, making new friends, and their overall cognitive readiness. Remember that school-age children start to compare themselves to others and form their self-image based on these comparisons.

Our child doesn’t need to be the best prepared academically for the first grade. It’s enough that they don’t significantly lag behind their peers in terms of skills. The rest of the integration and adaptation will come with time and is a completely natural process!

Independence

First grade is also a time when children gain a bit more freedom at school. They need to dress themselves for PE, remember to eat their mid-morning snack, occupy themselves during breaks, communicate their needs, and form new relationships. All these tasks can be summed up with the term “independence.”

It’s worth noting that children finishing nursery school are already quite independent. However, it’s important to create daily opportunities for independent behaviour, notice these efforts, and reinforce them with praise. By doing so, we equip the child with constructive beliefs about themselves, reducing the risk of situations at school that might cause frustration, a sense of helplessness, or fear of failure.