What is this about Art Therapy?
Art therapy is a technique to know ourselves and to channel our emotions, let’s say it is an emotional channel, which not only serves adults but children. Because through art we are able to explore, prove, errand amend.
Art and Therapy, join these two words together they create something much more powerful, consisting of the use of art as an escape route for the inner well-being. Anyone can do it, it does not necessarily have to be with people with specific psychological characteristics. With Art Therapy we also work on emotions, concentration, meditation in some way. Because it is a way of keeping us here and now. A way of meditating to eliminate those internal blockages that we often have or other problems that come from our past. The first thing to keep in mind is that as parents, adults who are guiding in the education of the little ones, we owe a tremendous care, yes, to ourselves. Because it will be our peace and well-being that will be important in order to guide our children in a healthy way.
What is Art therapy for?
With Art Therapy we can see what is not heard, that is, go beyond the voice. Take out what we have inside. And also children, and also adults, we can discover our full potential, work our autonomy accepting us, our self-esteem loving us. A beautiful way to “meditate”, to connect with ourselves, and all through art.
Art Therapy does not cure or is a pill of positivism, but it is a way to meditate, to connect with ourselves and channel our emotions turning them into art. I speak of nothing other than maintaining the inner peace of not letting thoughts take over our feelings and our actions. Through Art Therapy we can develop:
1. Natural and spontaneous creativity.
2. Present moment. Mind wakes up
3. Autonomy
4. Be aware of the process “here and now, now I put this, now I paint that, now I move like this”
5. Encourage improvisation
7. Establish solutions to possible conflicts in a creative way.
Art Therapy in Montessori Education.
For any type of Art Therapy, hands and body are used. And in Montessori education, you already know that everything happens first through the senses. Maria Montessori remarked that the instrument of intelligence was handed.
“What is there to think about the education of the senses? The senses are points of contact with the environment (…) like a pianist who can pluck sounds that can vary in infinite perfection from the keyboard. to extract from the senses more and more precise and refined impressions “Maria Montessori,” The absorbing Mind of the child”
Art therapy is also especially important for children because through their senses turned into art they can express and channel their emotions, just as it happens to adults … painting, dancing, theatre, music, writing, drawing, sewing, etc. For all of them, we use our body, our hands, in short, our senses.
In the same way, in a Montessori environment, art is part of a child’s day-to-day life. The child can choose whether to spend his time “meditating” with an art activity (painting, sewing, writing) or doing it with other material from another area of the environment.
And all of them are based on the “here and now”, the mindfulness, of what is so much talked about now, is undoubtedly the basis of all meditations. But of this, I will speak in another post that I have prepared. By this, I mean that Art Therapy helps us to focus the “here and now” expressing our feelings and emotions through art, and being aware of what we are doing without thinking about the past or the future, but about the work what we are creating.
So the relationship with Montessori education as you see is very close, that’s why, personally I think that Montessori is, without a doubt, a complete education, which encompasses all these points, even if they do not have a specific name. But it is clear that we can deepen even more in each of the things that will make us establish connections with ourselves, with others and ultimately with the world in order to be able to control ourselves emotionally and also peacefully manage the problems we face. occupy us.
Activities to do with children
1. Create an outdoor work of art. If you have a terrace, garden, a park near home, or a place where you can connect with the air and nature, go out and create !!
2.Take a canvas, a sheet of paper, finger paints, wooden crayons, etc.Nature and creativity. Nature can also give us possibilities: stones, leaves, sticks, sand, all the material we need is out there waiting for us, to create mandalas, figures, etc. But in connection with nature.
3. You paint me I paint you. Our body will be the canvas and our tools the non-toxic finger paints. Let’s enjoy, dance, believe.
4. Lights and Shadows. Find a place to put objects on a page and voilà! Start to draw the outline of those shadows that are created on the paper.
5. Draw in the sand. Feel and touch with our fingers the sand, forming drawings, erasing them, making them do.
6. I draw your face. A piece of methacrylate or plastic photo frame. Painting of fingers (just in case the hand escapes) and Create!
7. Paint nature. In our excursions to the countryside or the beach, pick up nature: sticks, shells, pineapples, stones, leaves, etc.
8. Paint with the feet. Fun, entertaining and a challenge.
