I am enthusiastic about this topic now, as yesterday I attended the same-named great workshop run by Megan Shiel, Art Therapist and Dialectical Behavour Therapist. Right from Teacher’s college days when I loved our textbook on Creative & learning development, I have tried to incorporate art and drama in the toolbox of means to facilitate development.
Megan’s workshop reinforced this concept and modelled ways to provide a safe non-judgemental environment to promote expression, mindfulness, imagination, communication, understanding and movement. Fantastic!!
Today, I am finding links from other sources to reinforce these ideas also e.g. in todays Enthos – the optimiser newsletter, there were quotes from Joseph Chiton Pearce “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong” and Pablo Picasso “I am always do what I cannot, in order that I may learn to do it”
Also The Happiness and its causes 7 day Mindfulness Challenge today set The Excellence Challenge – noting that “the average person for 49% of the time has their mind wandering ie doing one thing but thinking about something else” – the challenge is to do particular things with full concentration (like you are preparing for an exam) eg driving, cooking, reading.
For more specific ideas on art, concentration and motivation, relevant to your child’s needs, consult your occupational therapist.