Playing, drawing, playing music, composing — in a word, creating with children without coercion, without attaching excessive importance to achievements — is the best way to develop their abilities and imagination, art therapist Elena Makarova is convinced.
Psychologies: Is every child talented?
Elena Makarova: Yes, I have not met untalented children, they are creative by nature. If it seems to us that the child is not interested in anything, then we simply have not yet found something that would awaken his creativity. Perhaps he does not have a sense of inner security or sufficient freedom of spirit to create.
Another thing is not to confuse creativity and self-expression. The child screams or makes some kind of movement — this is how he expresses himself. But if we tell him: “Show me how your joy, your desire, your anger will sound…” — then the child will begin to look for something in himself from which creativity flows, he will begin to give it a special meaning.
Expressing oneself is neither good nor bad in itself, however, if we want to help a child, we need to give him a goal, give meaning to his spontaneous self-expression.
How to understand what talent a child has?
It is necessary to observe: what does he like, what is his attention directed to? If a child likes to mimic, copies the movements and gait of everyone he sees, he probably has acting skills, then you can “arrange a theater” with him, play role-playing games.
If he is especially attentive to sounds, to the intonation of speech, then you need to develop him in this direction: take him to concerts, arrange family jazz sessions, show how kitchen “instruments” sound — pots, spoons and cups … A dull sound, an open sound … You can arrange a whole orchestra.
In general, with young children it is important to play timely games that evoke creative activity.
What are these games?
I call these games «everything can be everything». Games-transformations, games-metamorphoses, in which the main law operates — the law of transformation.
Let’s take any object, let’s say a cup — it can be dealt with indefinitely. It can be a vessel, it can be a hat, a mountain or a face. If you put a cup of water in the freezer, then the surface of frozen water can become a skating rink; if you hide it in a dark box, it will not become at all.
Initially, children master the world by drawing lines, applying paint, creating plastic forms, and do not know what banality is.
You can take any objects that accidentally fell into the field of vision (different textures, different shapes, colors), and play with them. The game is the most important, the main way for the development of creative imagination.
What to do if the child lights up with a desire to do something, and then cools down?
If a child has lost the desire to, say, play an instrument, you can look for another teacher or temporarily stop classes, otherwise he may have an aversion to music.
You should not put him in the position of the accused — for not completing the case: perhaps he just felt the need to get this experience in order to understand what he really likes. Maybe this kind of creativity is generally “not his”, or maybe it’s just that the time has not yet come — after all, it is important not only to offer the child a suitable activity, but also to do it on time.
If he is discouraged by the need to make an effort, you should not indulge in exhortations: “To play like this aunt on TV, you have to try very hard.” The argument is better to do what gives the child pleasure.
Once I explained to one little composer — he really did not want to study theory — why there are notes: in the morning to play or sing what he composed yesterday. This explanation seemed to him quite reasonable, and he agreed to teach them.
It is believed that drawing is useful for all children. What exactly?
At the age of three to five years, this is the most important way of self-expression — a child simply cannot be uninterested in portraying. I highly recommend buying a roll of paper and hanging it in a free place (old wallpapers are also suitable, you can draw on them from the back), putting charcoal or pencils next to it. It is a roll — it is not a pity to unwind it and tear off pieces. You will see everything that happens to your child, what mood he is in, what he thinks about — this is a kind of diary.
By the way, such drawing would be useful for adults to the same extent as for children. A large space helps the child — his hand is not clamped, he draws freely, as he breathes, and does not care about creating a picture that parents then have to hang on the wall and show to friends and acquaintances.
Why are some kids so tight-lipped?
From birth, the child is not clamped. As the artist and writer Nikolai Kuzmin said, «in the beginning there was childhood, when each of us was a genius.» Initially, children master the world by drawing lines, applying paint, creating plastic forms, and do not know what banality is.
They are clamped later when two “systems” start to put pressure on them: notorious parents and kindergarten rules that teach to draw or sculpt “looks like” and “how to”.
By the end of elementary school, a child often «loses talent.» Because the school often does not develop, but exploits his abilities. The child reproduces the patterns he has already worked out and gets into a dead end.
Another hindrance to creativity is parental ambition. If parents are obsessed with the idea of success, they demand a result from their son or daughter — to be the best, — the child’s desire to draw, play music, compose can completely atrophy …
Having noticed obvious abilities in a child, should he be oriented, say, to a career as an artist?
Not necessarily, but it is worth doing everything to develop them. For example, the intensive development of the musical gift in childhood can then help the child become an excellent mathematician or programmer — perhaps he will perceive program codes more freely — like notes. It is very important to have good teachers and sensitive parents who do not crush the child’s creative abilities.
How do you know if a teacher is good or bad?
A bad teacher has no interest in the child. He may have an interest in the subject being taught, but this has nothing to do with pedagogy. Much also depends on the attitude: if the teacher told himself that this child is not capable of anything, then the child will not be capable — and then the classes turn into torment.
The task of a good teacher is to provide the child with space for development. He needs sensitivity to understand if the student’s talent lies in this area, and if not, to abandon the achievement of the result and direct the child to what he really has the ability to do.
How can modern parents, when they are busy, create such an atmosphere for the child at home, where both imagination and creative thinking will develop?
When we do not know how to help a child, we should at least not interfere with him. If he is busy with something, building something or composing something to himself, he is still in the process of creation. The funny thing is that children don’t need almost anything from us.
“Can I draw here?” — asks the son or daughter, and we answer them: “No!” Many build bastions of prohibitions: do not take this, do not touch that … Adults have no time all the time, many have simply forgotten how to contemplate, to see the opportunity to create something new. But this property lives in children. They are contemplators and doers at the same time.