Paint with Ayden: The Benefits of Painting for Children

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Being home-schooled, one of the activities I frequently do with Ayden at home is painting. Painting provides endless benefits to children. Even myself as an adult find painting therapeutic.

Here are some of the benefits of painting for children:

Hand-Eye Coordination

– This is a very important skill at their age; to be able to coordinate their hand movements at par with their vision. It may sound easy to us but for young children, practice makes perfect.

Decision making

– A simple painting activity actually teaches a child on decision making. Ayden has to decide what colour to be used for different parts of the painting. There is no right or wrong to it but it is a good start to introduce simple decision making in a child.

Communications

– Besides verbal communications, a child expresses their emotions best through their actions. Painting encourages a child to express their feelings through the colours they used and the strokes of their painting. A happy child usually utilises bright colours in their paintings with light strokes. A child who frequently paints with dark shades (especially black) and uses bold and strong strokes should be given more attention. He may have some underlying issues that needed to be addressed.

Confidence

– The satisfaction derives from seeing a blank paper turning into something gives them a sense of self-confidence as they accomplished a goal. This gives them a boost to their self-esteem.

Creative activities, like painting, help the brain develop so we do a lot of painting at home.

Today’s painting activity comes with a simple instruction. Ayden’s task today is to PAINT WITHIN THE PICTURE. He is free to use any colour he likes but he has to try painting within the picture.

Today’s goals are:
1) Motor skill – To train Ayden to control the paintbrush not to exceed the borderline of the picture.
2) Taking instruction – To help Ayden develop the ability to follow direction in a creative manner.
3) Have FUN!

This is the result of Ayden’s painting today. I think he did great. He managed to keep most of the paint within the picture. He was instructed NOT to paint the cat’s eyes and he managed just that – to leave the eyes alone.

Watch him paint the cat here:

Ayden @ 3Y7M