Seven infallible keys to get children interested in art (now that their minds are wonderful)

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After reading the editors of this page for years while my children were growing up... it turns out that they have decided that I should write with them. I don't know how it will seem to you, I am delighted and with a small knot in my stomach, there are so many eyes on the other side and I hope to live up to it! So I begin to tell you things about parenting that I sincerely hope will help you, that interest you and sometimes that amuse you and make you smile, that a smile in time helps a lot after several sleepless nights.

I start talking about creativity, imagination, the infinite capacity that children have to see the magic in the world and how art is an effective tool so that magic is not destroyed when they grow up, but only transforms as it that is, an energy that will surely be very useful to them during their adult life. How to approach and love children to art, in general? I have prepared a list with seven recommendations, seven infallible keys, ready?

Frequent exposure to all kinds of art

What has been that we do not expose children to the art of Easter bouquets. It is not so difficult to leave home and find an exhibition that many children can enjoy without much effort. There are museums, there are foundations, there are neighborhood, district, and municipal cultural centers. The offer is very wide and we as fathers and mothers are the catalysts of this offer, it is worth trying, after all it can become a good and healthy habit to do as a family, to be together, to be part of your stimuli and their memories.

give them time to feel

We are already in the room, let's take our time and let our children do the same. The rush has been left out of the building, we have planned this activity without a clock, without haste and without pressure. This art thing is what one has to know when to start but cannot set when to finish enjoying it. There will be children who take longer to do it and for others it will be more immediate, it will also depend on the previous point, the frequency with which our children move through the exhibition halls. This like everything is almost a training, in this case for your brain.

Respect your freedom to choose

I like large paintings but perhaps my oldest son likes small sculptures and he wants to spend more time in front of one of them than I do or maybe what my youngest son likes are photographs or montages and I I tiptoed past but without stopping before them. Freedom to decide what catches them. And once in front of the work, freedom to feel what it provokes and to express it, even to verbalize it or not... anything can happen!

Clap your imagination in front of art

Contemporary art encourages them to use it, at least a priori, however I remember a walk through some of the Prado Museum's canvases in which my children saw pirates, bathers who were lost in the horizon and above all they created stories seeing them , loves, heartbreaks, sea monsters… Imagination is the magic wand that children have, we have to let them take it out and put it to work and for that art is a perfect field in which to sow.

Build all the trust you need

And why can't that piano full of lights be a ship at night or that lady frying eggs the great-grandmother of the school canteen cook? Yes, they are ideas that cross their minds and they have to have enough confidence to tell us about it, their imagination leads them to these conclusions but the confidence they have in themselves will lead them to defend them, these and many more ideas that they create as they grow. Perhaps now they will only tell them to us, it is up to us to strengthen that trust, consolidate it and help them grow.

feed your curiosity

They carry it as standard in their little heads, sometimes it plays tricks on them, that's true, but in this case enhancing their curiosity can be a game that brings them closer to art and makes them maintain a relationship that accompanies them throughout their lives. Many times the painting, the sculpture, the work in general, is better understood knowing a little more about the author's context, his personal circumstances. I don't know at what age my son became absorbed with the brutality of "Zeus devouring his son" by Goya, when he learned that at that time the painter had just suffered a very serious illness that even left him with sequels, he understood it even more and better . His curiosity is like a key to learn without stopping enjoying, art in this sense is a precious vehicle and we can provide knowledge that serves to satisfy that curiosity and that does not stop growing.

Always look for fun in the experience

Not because it is the last one, it is the least important, but on the contrary, the previous six will only work if the seventh is fulfilled. If the children do not have fun with this, there is nothing to do, we will be planting waste. If the method has not worked for us, we can always retrace our steps and try to find another way in which art is fun for our children, in which it forms part of their lives as something as normal as brushing their teeth. A play, a concert, an exhibition, a good book... the options are almost endless as long as they are related to fun, how little we differ in that as children and adults! Or are you a lot of voluntarily doing activities that you don't find fun?

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