Y is for Young Minds
Supporting children’s young minds
This article is going to explore how creativity can be used to support children’s wellbeing and their young minds. Wellbeing is essential for all of us, and many adults use creativity to support their own wellbeing.
Before I continue, just for a moment think about how you engage in creativity to support your own wellbeing, this might be through baking, singing, drawing, playing an instrument, knitting, listening to music. There is a lot of information available around how creativity can support an adult’s wellbeing, but we often hear less about it with regards to children.
In your settings you probably use creativity daily, offering paint, drawing materials, reading stories, singing songs, and offering dressing up clothes. These are all essential tools in early years practice, but I wonder how often you and your staff think about these in relation to boosting a child’s wellbeing?. In my main job I work with a small team supporting three and four year old children in nursery and reception classes, these children all have high social, emotional and mental health needs. Using creativity to support their wellbeing is a crucial part of my job, in this article I am going to share some ways I have found creativity can be a useful tool to support children.
Using stories
In early years we are often excellent at using stories, this is a great way to open up many different ideas and worlds to children, it is also an excellent way to explore and think about feelings and emotions. There is a growing library of excellent authors using stories to explore complex feelings and emotions, three of my favourites are Tom Percival, Rachel Bright and Oliver Jeffers. Along with using these stories I often make a story sack to go alongside them, often in these I might have knitted characters that I have made e.g. a dinosaur or a love monster ( these link with Rachel Bright books), a boat, boy and penguin ( lost and found book by Oliver Jeffers). These small creations along with the story are introducing some forms of crafting to the children, the children love to play with them alongside the story, and then sometimes they make their own characters and stories using empty toilet rolls, wool, glue, cardboard boxes etc.
Using clay
Over the last few years I have been increasingly using clay, many of the children I support have some big emotions in them, and these need releasing in a safe way. Clay can be a fantastic way to help children release these big feelings. I have experienced many children who are feeling angry find some calm as they work with clay, the process of rolling, squashing and manipulating the clay appears to help them let out the strong feelings and bring some calm. We often use play dough in the early years, and I am a big fan of play dough.However, clay is more tactile, it is more malleable and the children can make something that can dry and they can keep it if they want it. You can buy air dry clay, but I would recommend finding your local potters shop ( there will almost certainly be one in your area), it is much cheaper to buy a big bag of clay and you don’t have to fire it, it will go hard and the children can take home what they have made, or you can wet it down and re use it. You could also invite a potter in to show the children what they have made and talk about using clay.
Music and painting
Many early years settings will be using music daily, songs to sing to and maybe dance to. However I wonder how often you use music to link to the child’s cultural experiences and to link to their feelings and emotions? There are some easy ways you can do this, a couple of years ago I co-wrote a book with Jamel Campbell and he spoke about using a variety of music with children to explore feelings, he told me how he gets parents to tell him about the music they listen to at home, and use this to play to the children in the setting.This connection with home and culture at home is so important, helping children to make the connections between home and setting. He also uses painting materials to music, getting children to paint how they feel in response to the music they are listening to. I loved this idea and have tried it out, the children responded so well.
Creativity can be a useful tool to support children’s wellbeing.
Think about the resources and tools you use and how they can help children to explore and express their feelings and emotions.
Think about how you can offer a wide range of different creative opportunities to children, through craft, story telling, music, singing, dance, drawing, painting, and sculpture. You can open up this world through the resources you offer them and the images/people/ objects you show them.
Further reading
Sonia has written several books including Creativity and Wellbeing in the Early Years and Building Positive Relationships in the Early Years. Find out more!
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About the Author
Sonia Mainstone-Cotton supports 3- and 4-year-olds with social, emotional, and mental health needs. She trains on children’s SEMH and wellbeing and has written 11 books, including Supporting Children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs in the Early Years (Routledge, 2021) and several titles published by JKP.
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