For our column, Ask an Educator, we turn to educators, whether teachers, tutors, or principals, to answer frequently asked questions from parents. To send in your question, email jessicasuotmaa@beijing-kids.com.

This week, our question is:

“How can a preschool-aged child benefit from guided art classes?”

Answering for us is Lia Tedjokusumo, Art Director at Papp’s Tea and Art Educator at Blue Bridge International Education.

I have taught art classes to children as young as 18 months and as old as 15 years since 2014 when I first joined the Blue Bridge Art Educator team. However, there’s something special about my junior 1 and 2 classes that fueled my dedication to the specific levels of younger  students.

The benefits for a preschool aged child taking guided art lessons are abundant. As art educators, we’re not only focusing on the process of creating an artwork and the end result of having a finished product, but we also design the class to have a simple, fun, yet firm structure that will allow our students to develop independence, self-esteem, and social skills.  We aim to stimulate creativity at a baby-speed, where things are not rushed but can be naturally learned and practiced.

Why is baby-speed important?  Children can practice fine motor skills and positive coping mechanisms through art lessons.  I believe in learning prudently, which is what I saw in the children as they evolved class by class. It takes time, repetition, and a stable environment for children to build self-esteem, discipline, and independence.

Art classes allow young children to accomplish without unnecessary pressure. A lot of my students will seek approval for their work, and I always express to them that there’s no good or bad artwork; there’s only “your own” artwork, with less or more practice. What you do will never be the same as what others do, even if you try to copy each other’s work or technique–that’s the beauty of art lessons!

During art classes, students can also learn English while doing something they enjoy. Learning English in an art class is very different than learning English in a regular language class. The material might be less, the vocabulary taught might be simpler, but this makes it easier for young children to remember them. Even now, whenever any of my students tells me something they remember from a previous class, I get emotional (on the inside).

Photos: courtesy of Lia Tedjokusumo

Early last week, we visited Art Bug (CBD center) where Dr. Kristie Craigen, Director of Assessments of the Jadis Blurton Family Development Center in Hong Kong, led an interactive discussion with parents about building resilience in children. Bei Zhang, Managing Director of Art Bug, translated the presentation.

Dr. Craigen describes resilience as being able to effectively manage strong emotion and to be able to keep acting in a positive way despite feeling negative emotion. She expresses her most important point: “When you’re talking about resilience, the one thing to remember is that to be able to adapt these theories to your child, you need to be thinking about your child as an individual,” she said.

Understanding emotions can be a really confusing task. In English there are more than 800 words to describe emotion. “It’s really hard for adults, let alone children,” Dr. Craigen explains. To demonstrate the point, the group shouted out as many words as we could in two minutes in both English and Chinese coming up with no more than 25-30 words total. The point of the activity was that being aware of emotions and even being able to describe them is essential to learning how to adapt healthy ways of coping with emotions, the first step in developing resilience.

So what can parents do help their children develop resilience? Dr. Craigen listed the following suggestions.

Let your child make mistakes– “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s important to remember that when you’re failing, you’ll often learn life lessons. By protecting children from small failures, we’re actually stopping them from developing resilience.” Dr. Craigen says. “If your children aren’t failing sometimes, they’re not taking risks or stepping outside of their comfort zone.”

Praise effort, not just success- “If the child isn’t too focused on being successful, they’ll choose the harder task, just to show more effort.”

Encourage flexible thinking- “Help children consider the thoughts and perspectives of others. Ask them, ‘why do you think that’s the answer, what makes you think that, how do you think it made so and so feel when you did that?’”

Be adaptable- “This is the concept of being able to change, in the light of new information. It reduces all or nothing type thinking.”

Modeling resilient behavior in the face of stress is also important for parents, as children tend to imitate adult behavior. Dr. Craigen recognizes the difficulty. “Emotions are hard to control, they just happen, but you can learn to change your thoughts,” she says. “By becoming more aware and practicing, we can get better but we’re never going to be perfect. There’s going to be times when we’re so upset that we act inappropriately. Managing emotions is about recognizing them, understanding them and then taking steps to improve them.”

Photo courtesy of Art Bug

Today, April 21, is International Creativity and Innovation Day, which makes this the perfect excuse to rethink what creativity and innovation means to you and your family. The first thoughts that come to mind when thinking about creativity and innovation are scientists in white lab coats and an artist creating masterpieces. Sometimes it takes thinking outside the box to celebrate new ideas. The use of some fundamentally basic principles in science and art. Since 2002, this day has been marked in over 46 countries.

This day came to be when creativity specialist Marci Segal, came up with the idea for World Creativity and Innovation Day after reading a newspaper headline, "Canada in Creativity Crisis", Segal decided to do something about it and with the help of her colleagues, she organized the first World Creativity Day.

Daring to be different takes courage and confidence. Today, try to do something differently such writing in reverse like Leonardo Da Vinci, wear your shirt inside out or take something old and make something new out of it like a pair of jeans and make cut off shorts. The little things will eventually grow to be big things.

This weekend, Art Bug hosts children aged 3-12 to join them in marking this day (even if its a bit belated). Painting and drawing are a good way for children to learn about creativity in the aspect of how to build ideas and identify opportunities. Check out what other events are taking place this week.

Wherever you go to get creative just remember to have fun and try something new.

Photos courtesy of pennuja (Flickr)