We swap paints and brushes for materials that provide significantly more containment and structure. By shrinking and photocopying their original nature drawings onto transparencies, our students are able to overlap their images with those of their classmates, thus creating a single, combined image. A tree on one transparency can now find a home next to an ocean from another transparency. Using an overhead projector to project and trace their combined images onto a single piece of paper, they successfully work together to create a collaborative landscape.
Thinking about the materials that you offer and how they might affect emotions and behavior can make all the difference in helping your child explore the balance between freedom of expression and self-containment. If she is playing with looser material, it’s important to think about how to help contain the energy that the material creates. In the face of a more challenging task, your child may benefit from more structured materials. Here are some more examples of ways to use materials to help children from getting too carried away, overwhelmed, or overstimulated by an art activity:
• Put a paper plate or tray under clay, glitter, or beading activities.
• Offer a smaller piece of paper instead of an overwhelmingly large one. Or place a larger piece of paper beneath the smaller one. The larger piece of paper can essentially “frame” the smaller one, providing clearer visual boundaries for art making. If a child is working with paint or a similarly loose material, the larger piece will also catch the overflow and prevent it from ending up on the table.
• Make hand wipes accessible.
• Place finger paints and paper inside a shallow box.
Conversely, looser materials may be useful for children who could use a little loosening up. For children who become easily frustrated, don’t like messes, or tend to be hard on themselves, you may want to slowly challenge them to have fun with looser materials:
• Offer paints and the task to “make the ugliest painting possible.”
• Provide larger paper, paintbrushes, and sponges. Put paper on a floor, wall, or easel instead of on the confinements of a table.
• Experiment with process-based activities without any expectations for the outcome. For example, attach crayons to the top of a canvas with hot glue. Then use a hair dryer to melt the crayons and watch them drip down the canvas.
Keeping the properties of materials in mind isn’t only about containing messes and behavior with which we prefer not to deal. When we provide support for children to practice the balance of self-expression and self-management, we are helping them prepare for life (see fig. 2.3). From peer relationships to classroom and workplace demands, the more opportunities that children have to practice impulse control, persistence, collaboration, focus, and breaking down large tasks into manageable parts—to name a few—the more connected, happier, and successful they will be.
2.3 Balance containment and self-expression
. . .
Experiment with how different materials feel not only to the touch but also in terms of sensations, impulses, or thoughts that they provoke in mind and body. Set out a variety of materials, both structured and unstructured. Try each one out with your children in turn. What thoughts and feelings, if any, do they evoke? Do you or your children feel challenged by any of the materials? Loosened up? Contained? Which materials do you dislike? Why? Of what do they remind you? If you are doing this experiment with younger children, ask which they like best and least. Which are easy or hard to work with? Which make them feel messy, silly, happy, or frustrated?
. . .
We can use information generated from this exercise to inform what materials to use with our children to loosen them up or rein them in. What’s more, the exercise itself helps children begin to pay attention to the impact of different experiences on how they feel and respond, as well as how they can shift their feeling state by changing sensory input.
MESSY, LOUD, AND OFF-KEY
“Da Da Da da-da Da da-da Da,” My son starts singing the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. After a few bars, my daughter starts in with her favorite princess song. My son gets louder. My daughter tries to outdo him. They’re enjoying themselves as they sing over each other, louder and louder. My nerves are shot. We’re in the car. I’m driving. The cacophony is compelling me to shout: “Stop!” I resist. They’re not doing anything wrong, per se. I want to want to let them carry on, but I’m tired and want them to cease.
Kids are told “No” a lot during the day, which is why it’s important to use creative moments to say “Yes” as much as possible. Encouraging creativity, exploration, and self-expression indeed requires tolerating scraps of paper on the floor, loud banging on pots and pans, and off-key singing of the same annoying song over and over again. But it doesn’t have to mean a free-for-all either. It’s equally important to teach kids how and when to be messy, loud, and off-key in a way that considers the needs of others and teaches responsibility.
Nope, that doesn’t work for me
“Can we add glitter?!” my daughter asks as we work on her brother’s birthday banner. Ugh. I want to say “No.” I go through my checklist. Is it a safety issue? No. Does it violate the rights or property of others? No. Is it in opposition to our family values? Nope. So, then, why not? The answer comes, clear as day: because I’m tired, and I have a million other things to do, and it’s just plain inconvenient for me right now. And then I realize that’s okay, too.
It’s okay to say “No” to our children, even when it’s for entirely selfish reasons. In fact, it’s important to do so. For starters, we parents need breaks now and again. We’re happier and more balanced as parents when we take them. We need opportunities to meet our own needs, instead of stretching ourselves so thin that we resent the continual demands of others.
Saying “No” also provides the opportunity to teach valuable lessons, such as consideration of others and time constraints. As Robin Berman points out in Permission to Parent (2014), many well-meaning parents overindulge their children for fear of hurting their feelings. What results, she emphasizes, is a generation of children unable to handle setbacks and disappointments. They struggle to consider the needs of others. As important as it is to open the doors to creative expression (and to stretch our tolerance for loud, messy, and off-key activities), we can also support our children’s growth when we say “No” once in a while. It matters how we do this, though (see fig. 2.4).
Step 1: Affirm the activity—Find something positive about the activity: “I notice you came up with a new idea” or “I see you really rockin’ out on those drums.”
Step 2: Take responsibility—Clearly state whose needs are not being met: “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me (your brother, the family, us, our classroom) right now.” Together, steps 1 and 2 communicate clearly that you are open to the creative expression, and something about it