Parent/child art projects offer children and parents many benefits. Even short periods of creative time impact social, cognitive, and emotional development of children. Plus, you’re creating long-lasting memories. While it’s certainly good to give your child some paper and crayons and let them have some creative alone time, it’s also extremely beneficial to spend time creating art together. You don’t have to think of yourself as artistic to spent time in art-making with your child, this is just as much of a learning experience for the parent as the child. Let your inner child out and explore!
According to art therapist Vicky Armstrong who is a postgraduate researcher in Psychology “the art-making process encourages behaviors that build strong relationships, such as eye contact, pleasant touch, shared goals, responsiveness. You may notice during art-making that there is lots of joint attention – where you both look at the same thing together. This helps with social skills, such as language and perspective-taking, and feeling connected.”
As you’re working together with your child, remember that your job as a parent is to encourage and reinforce effort rather than focus on the outcome.
It’s clear from the research that praising children for their effort, not the quality of the final product is important. Childhood education professionals advise against complimenting your child’s artwork with phrases like “it’s beautiful” and instead advise parents to focus their attention on the process of creating the art.
If you don’t already have a “creativity kit” it’s time to put one together. You don’t need anything fancy. Get a sturdy plastic or cardboard box and fill it with basic art supplies like crayons, markers, non-toxic paint, paint brushes, safety scissors, a variety of papers, chalk, and white glue. Consider adding household items to your kit: common items like empty paper towel rolls, cotton balls, and paper plates can be used for fun projects. Your first project can be decorating your creativity box!
Projects can be simple: using household items to stamp paint onto paper, mixing colors to make new ones, drawing simple shapes. Experiment and have fun together.
Supporting your child’s creativity and spending time together is what’s important. Years from now it won’t matter what was created, what will make the biggest difference is the time you spend together.