Art and arts education have certain benefits for children that, while difficult to quantify or measure, offer valuable means to broaden their experiences and help shape their perspectives on a wide range of issues. Parents seeking to introduce their children to such benefits have a variety of choices to make and a myriad of options to choose from when making their decisions.

Art is food for the mind and spirit.

It has often been remarked that “art feeds the soul”, a shorthand way of saying that the arts and art education can often act as comfort and nourishment for the psyche. For children, learning about the arts helps develop their imagination and fosters their ability to think creatively. These benefits extend to other areas of the child’s mind, reflected in increased problem solving and reading comprehension skills, as well as better analytical thought processes.

But in addition to growing educational skills, art also helps children interpret the events around them by seeing the works of others as attempts to achieve a similar goal. And for kids who are learning to make art themselves, the satisfaction inherent in creating something original gives their self-confidence a powerful boost.

Help children create their own art.

Many parents don’t realize that helping their children nurture their creative impulses is usually not expensive or time consuming. In fact, children only need minimal supplies and materials to start creating. A trip to a local art store should provide all the pencils, drawing paper, or sculpting clay needed to get the child on their way.

For a more formal approach, many colleges and universities sometimes offer children’s art classes in a more academic setting, allowing children to learn about art in a teacher-student setting. Instructors are often artists and can offer expert guidance that parents may not. Fees for such courses vary and, unfortunately, there is no guarantee that attendance will necessarily reveal undiscovered talent, although that is often the case as well.

How to help children discover the act of creating.

Another popular misconception is that children need too elusive a talent to truly enjoy the act of creating. While that may become so in later years as the creative approach becomes more disciplined, at a young age talent is not the most important thing. Instead, it is enough that children are familiar with the emotional rewards of creating (as well as experiencing) art. This is really “art for art’s sake” and for the happiness of the child.