Art therapy for children
One of the most powerful methods of psychotherapeutic influence on a child is art therapy for children. What is this technique? The word "art" means art, "therapy" is treatment, that is, "art therapy" is the treatment of art. This is a fairly broad concept, this includes exposure through drawing, modeling, singing, music, dancing, fairy tales - all types of creativity. This is one of the advantages of art therapy for children, because you can always choose the form that is closest and most interesting to each particular baby.
This method has other advantages, three of which are as follows:
- Art therapy for children is effective. Where other methods of psychotherapy are difficult to apply due to a young age and the associated limitation in verbal communication, the method is simply irreplaceable;
- Conducting such classes, after simple training, is available even to a non-professional. This means that parents will be able to provide sufficiently qualified assistance to their child themselves, without referring to a specialist. This is all the more important because in our society, the culture associated with psychotherapeutic assistance is still in its infancy, and mom and dad turn to a child psychologist, as a rule, only in extreme cases;
- Children like art therapy, so these activities are devoid of an element of coercion, but rather are perceived as an interesting pastime. Non-coercive psychotherapy is much more effective.
The most common type of art therapy for children is painting. Probably because it is easiest to organize it, except for paper and drawing supplies, nothing else is needed, and all children love to draw. It must be borne in mind that this is not teaching children to draw. Here, on the contrary, children's vision and children's spontaneity are important, therefore, parents, inviting their child to draw, should not interfere, making their own amendments, no matter how they would like it. By the way, most child psychologists agree that one of the most effective and informative methods for psychologists is as follows. The kid is given a sheet of paper and paints, and asked to draw what he wants, without limiting him, and then the drawing is analyzed.
Each type of art therapy for children has its own characteristics and benefits. If the child is generally stable, and his problems do not go beyond the norm, then art therapy can be used as the main method of treatment. If a child has serious disabilities, then art therapy is used as an important addition to the main treatment.
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