5 Art Therapy Exercises For Children

Children are great explorers. Day after day, they express their motivation to know and to discover new things. They are beings who marvel at everything that surrounds them and make their life a magical world where discoveries reign.

The curiosity that children carry shapes the potential of their creativity. They have a great ability to generate new ideas, which is reflected in their games and questions. And they rely on the imagination as a treasure, an important resource that helps them have their best fun.

However , children’s creativity can be explored in a variety of ways, one of which is art. Through creative processes, children can learn, explore, stimulate various sensations and perceptions, motivate themselves, learn resources to deal with difficult situations, improve attention, motor and visuospatial skills, among others.

We often even think that children don’t have any problems, but they don’t. Of course they do, just like fears and worries, the difference is that they show them in a different way. Art therapy exercises are a great option to help them find a way to express themselves and resolve them.

Below we explain 5 interesting art therapy exercises for children that strengthen their creative world and also make it easier to express what is most important to them.

The magic of mandalas

Mandalas are sacred circles from Eastern cultures that have started to spread throughout the world today. There are different ways to use them with children. Here are a few examples:

• Mandalas coloring page. Children can decorate or paint mandalas that are already designed. In this way, we will encourage them to enter a state of calm and relaxation.
• Create and decorate mandalas. When they have the opportunity to make more precise designs, they can create their own mandalas and then decorate them. In addition to relaxing them, they will awaken their creativity.
• Mandalas and full attention. The therapist invites the children to pay special attention to the creative process. To do this, he uses elements that promote this situation, such as music.

The magic of mandalas is to make it easier for children to connect with themselves, with their deepest thoughts and emotions. Thanks to them, children can express their feelings and improve their creative and visual abilities. In addition, the art therapist can analyze the thoughts and feelings of the child through what he projects on them.

Art therapy for children with plastic art

The plastic art exercises are wonderful. Using elements such as photographs or drawings, children create their work of art and explore various sensations and perceptions in the process. There are many ideas, here we show you some of them:

• Photography. Here, the child knows himself through the images of himself and his world. Subsequently, he reflects on the choice of his photographs and the relationship with their conflicts.
• Paint. Through it, the child is able to show part of his inner world. In addition, paint can also be used with children to stimulate their senses. For example, they can paint with their hands.
• Collages. By creating a collage, children can stimulate their minds to put into it what they feel and think.
• Sculpture. It is about creating things using clay or a buildable material, even their own body can also be used to express their thoughts, situations and certain feelings.

All of these exercises promote the release of problems and shifts in perspective. Even the therapist can suggest that the children redo the play as a representation of the change. In this way, the problems will take a different form and new avenues can be found.

The world of writing

For art therapy with children through writing, age must be taken into account when choosing activities.

One possible exercise would be to describe themselves. Once completed, an analysis is done with them on the why of each aspect, as well as what they would like to improve and what they would not like to improve.

Another art therapy exercise for kids is story writing. This is for children to create a story, paying attention to each character, where it takes place and the scene. In addition, they think together to understand the story, while asking the child who is the author if he associates the characters with people he knows, if he has gone through the same process to define the characters. places and activities of history. This will provide a lot of information about what is happening to the child and how we can guide him to a resolution.

As we see, writing encourages attention, encourages creativity and allows children to free themselves from their problems, guided by the therapist.

Art therapy for children through movement

Through movement, children can achieve an integration of their emotional, cognitive and physical aspects. In addition, it allows them to better orient themselves in space, strengthen their creativity, release endorphins and express their emotions and ideas.

• Theater. Children can show what is happening to them through representation, and they can even be asked to represent a way to solve the problem.

• The dance. Dance has incredible therapeutic power because it helps children channel their emotions, connect with themselves, and become aware of their bodies and their place in space.

The power of music

Music is an element capable of connecting with the deepest emotions. It can therefore be used in many ways to perform different art therapy exercises for children. Some of them are as follows:

• Music and reflection. In this exercise, the child explores the deepest part of himself in a space of reflection favored by music. Then, an analysis of what happened is done so that the child can integrate his experiences at the physical, emotional and cognitive levels.
• Compositions. This exercise involves letting children use all their ingenuity to compose a song that reflects what they think and feel, then sing or comment on it. In one part of the session, you can analyze what happened to encourage the child’s learning, and you can even reshape the song as a symbol of conflict resolution.

• Singing. Through song, children can express their feelings in a fun way. For example, they can choose the songs they identify with the most and explore what is happening in the singing session working with the therapist and the group.
• Instruments. In this case, the children explore the instruments and compose, expressing through music what happens to them.

Music encourages emotional problem solving, enhances creativity, and promotes socialization. It also improves attention, memory and helps structure language. It is an unparalleled therapeutic tool.

The benefits of art therapy for children

As we can see, art therapy for children offers many benefits. Among them, we find:

• It stimulates creativity
• It allows the expression of thoughts and feelings
• It promotes the integration of psychological, physical and social aspects
• It strengthens executive power functions such as attention, memory, spatial orientation
• It improves the language
• It promotes self-awareness
• She helps to work in groups
• It generates a feeling of security and a feeling of listening
• It encourages exploration

• It increases self-confidence
• It encourages communication
• It encourages decision making
• She helps to cope with problems
• It improves motor skills

Art therapy is one way to promote the well-being of children. A unique method that allows them to learn to express, solve and face problems in a fun way.

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