Benefit of doing art activities with your kids

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Benefit of doing art activities with your kids

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It's great for parents to use art activities with kids. You don't have to be Picasso or Rembrandt, but just the idea of expressing yourself is wonderful. And what I love to do is create a feeling self-portrait. And for the younger ones, you could lay out big butcher-block paper and trace the little one on the ground. And then you put in their feelings. And so whether they keep their mad feeling, whether they keep their happy feelings. What color is it? What shape is it? And have them use whatever markers they use, smelly markers and changeable markers, it's all very fun. And then they start having a feeling language for themselves. And the older kids, they could just draw their bodies on a piece of paper by themselves, and you watch, you add feelings. And by the time they're teenagers they have things like bored or betrayed, much more sophisticated feelings. But they have a way to talk about them and to realize where they keep it in their body. Because when you have feelings in your body and it's stressful, you wind up having headaches or stomachaches, and this teaches kids to be aware of it. And then switching over to doing something else. After you do an imaginary journey with them, you might want to draw it. Because it's a way for them to be cathartic and let you know what's happening. You might not know what's going on in their little imagination, but when they put it on paper, you could see and then you could have a dialogue with it and go on from there.

Watch Video: Benefit of doing art activities with your kids by Charlotte Reznick, PhD, ...

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Charlotte Reznick, PhD

Psychologist & Author

Charlotte Reznick, PhD, is a child educational psychologist, a former UCLA Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology, and author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling book, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success. Dr. Reznick is also creator of Imagery For Kids: Breakthrough for Learning, Creativity and Empowerment, a mindful, positive coping skills program, and writer/producer of several therapeutic relaxation CDs for children, teens and parents. In addition to her private practice, she is a frequent media consultant, and teaches workshops internationally on the healing power of children's imagination.

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