Living with Children:
1. The 3 Child Development Phases
2. The Importance of Play
3. Creative Discipline
4. Art with Children
1. The 3 Child Development Phases
“Children are potent seeds,
not empty vessels waiting to be filled”.
- But what is an appropriate guideline for a child’s development?
- What are the real needs of the child throughout the different stages?
- How can I nourish and protect the child in these times?
- What pace of learning is beneficial for a child?
- What if my child shows signs of developmental delay?
Adults who are responsible for protecting and nourishing the early lives of children will be empowered by understanding the different and changing needs of the growing child on all levels. Steiner’s picture of the first 3 phases of life provides a comprehensive foundation for such understanding.
This understanding of the first 3 Phases is also a recommended foundation for other Artbeat workshops in the Living with Children Series,
(such as Creative Discipline, The Importance of Play, & Art with Children)
This introductory workshop explores the first 3 developmental phases in a person’s life,
and the following aspects relevant and unique to each phase
….. learning needs
….. physiological aspects
….. Psychological / Consciousness growth factors
….. environmental factors
….. potentialities
For example, the learning needs:
0 – 7 years old ………..
the child needs to learn that ‘the world is Good’
and learn by freely ‘imitating’,
and learn through ‘play’, not intellect.
7 – 14 years old ………
the child needs to learn that ‘the world is Beautiful’
and learn by revering respected authority,
and learn pictorially, via creativity, and via the 12 Senses, and via rhythmical movement.
and learn from the world around them, not from abstract concepts.14 – 21 years old ………
the child needs to learn that ‘the world is True’
and learn by the development of abstract conceptual thinking and rational, logical, critical holistic thinking,
and learn from peer modeling, ‘heroes’ and mentors.
2. The Importance of Play
" Play teaches the child, without his being aware of it, the habits most
needed for intellectual growth, such as stick-to-itiveness, which is so
important in all learning. Perseverance is easily acquired around enjoyable
activities such as chosen play. But if it has not become a habit through
what is enjoyable, it is not likely to become one through an endeavor like
schoolwork."| Bruno Bettelheim, The Importance of Play
- Should my child spend less time playing and more time studying?
- What is the use of play?
- What kind of play most suits the age of my child?
- My ‘special needs’ child doesn’t play like other children. What can I do?
Children learn primarily through play… any premature intellectual stimulation of abstract thinking interrupts the natural process of child development and causes later problems (physical, emotional, mental).
In young children the brain’s development is best nourished by ‘work’ with the hands… in play activities. The hands are the ‘brains’ of the child….. at the periphery of the nervous system. The brain is only fully developed at puberty and overuse of the brain before then can cause anxiety, and many other problems, including learning difficulties.
These are just two of the many reasons why children need to play.
This introductory workshop explores:
• The many more reasons for the primacy of play in children’s lives
• Ideas for developmental age-appropriate play activities that are accessible with minimum expense and maximum benefit.
• How parents, teachers etc can best engage with children in play settings
• Play for the children with special needs
3. Creative Discipline
“ Are we merely ‘teaching’ children …..
or are we ‘engaging’ them? ”
Children are potent seeds,
(precious, resilient and yet vulnerable) requiring ‘nutrition’ and protection appropriate to their stage of development.
Their childhood and adolescent health, on all levels, will largely determine their adult health.
They are not empty vessels that need to be filled
with ‘imposed discipline’, 'educational information' and 'entertainment'.
If the inner 'organs' are not able to 'digest' what is forced into them then it will be like poison to them, regardless of any apparent social, economic or academic success.
When teachers and parents are empowered with the clear guidelines of age-appropriate ‘Creative Discipline’ they have a way to diagnose and evaluate the needs of each unique situation with a child or within a group of children, and insights for engaging the children in ways that both nourish the children and the role of the adult.
Conflicts and crises that once exhausted both child and adult carer become learning opportunities for all concerned: even opportunities for deeper connection.
The creativity that is called out spreads beyond the so-called disciplinary needs and comes alive in other aspects of the learning situation, and this mitigates against child apathy and aggression, and against parent/teacher burnout.
Above all, children who have been labeled as ‘problem children’, (even if only in the minds of their teachers and their family), can really blossom under the creative nurturance and protection of this approach. Their so-called problems are seen from a new perspective and with their new tools the teachers and parents can enjoy discovering the potential of children that were otherwise marked for failure.
Teachers who have become jaded by their frustrations with children can come to a ‘second wind’ of enthusiasm for their vocation.
The Creative Discipline tools are very specific!!!
They are challenging because they ask us to tap deeply into our authenticity, our ability to be truly present and creative (and not fall back on formulas)…. but they are quite specific. The generalizations and abstractions that often leave teachers and parents bewildered are overcome by the clarity of the guidelines, and yet the freedom of the teacher or parent is still respected and needed in the implementation.
The Creative Discipline approach is the foundation for teachers in the International Waldorf Schools as well as in the Steiner-based Curative Centers such as the Camphill Community, and the results are recognized throughout the world, so much so that many public/government schools in Australia and elsewhere are adopting these methods in special ‘Waldorf-inspired’ wings attached to their mainstream schools, or in the usual classes.
Graduates from Waldorf schools are famously headhunted for their overall abilities both academic and social, and are listed as CEOs for some of the biggest corporations in the world.
The fears that some people have that Creative Discipline and ‘real life’ don’t mix has been proved unfounded. When we relate to the child appropriately according to the child’s real needs then we prepare the child for the ‘real’ world. Scolding teaches through fear and shame and these do not strengthen but weaken the child’s deeper life. Fear inspires obedience or rebellion, not inspiration or true individual initiative.
Synopsis of Workshop
1. Introduction to the concept of ‘Creative Discipline’:
its origins in Steiner- based Child Development & (Waldorf-inspired) Education.2. The 3 childhood Phases of Lifespan Development
• Birth to 7 years old
• 7 to 14yo
• 14- 21yo3. The main claims of ‘Creative Discipline’
• Creates a healthy and effective Learning Environment for teachers and pupils.
• Nurtures ‘Goodness, Beauty & Truth’ in the child.
• Sets foundations for their adult physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health.
• Creates warmth of relationship bonding between children & adults
• Offers an age-appropriate understanding of what works in supporting a child’s development.
• Addresses the bigger picture of social benefit: prevention is preferable to ‘cure’.
• Offers a path of inner development for the parent or teacher
4. The practical method of ‘Creative Discipline’….. … ‘What and How and When’.
The Key Concepts:The 7 Learning Stages & the link to Creative Discipline.
Awakening to the world (‘The 12 Senses’)
True Discipline? (‘spare the rod’ etc)
Constructive
Guiding
Consistency
Corrections Now
Imitation, Revered authority, Mentors
Recreating the ‘Form’
No to “no”
Clear messages & limited choices
The magic word “May…”
Sharing? Borrowing? Taking Turns?
Healing Actions
Violent Play
Consequent Action
Dropping ‘it’ & Starting Over
The adult as the pivot point5. Factors that work cooperatively with ‘Creative Discipline’ in engaging children:
play, craft, art, story telling and nature.6. Questions and recap and closing
Linda will tell stories throughout from her experience of working with children, by way of illustration
Participants will have a chance throughout to ask questions and discuss cases from their work life, time allowing.
4. Art with Children
" Naturally the child is not conscious of this effect of art upon his learning
process. He does not reflect on what he is doing, but lives intensively in
the activities. In this way he has experiences at deep levels, which can wait
there to be grasped by him consciously in later stages of life and to find an
expression in an ability to lead his own life. These effects reveal the true
human justification for artistic endeavors in the pre-school. Art is not an
aesthetic add-on to 'real life', but as an exercise of continual striving it can
become the foundation of a truly human mastery of life"| Freya Jaffe, "About Painting and Human Development Through Art"
Children learn holistically through their hands, not through their ‘brains’. ‘Brain-learning’ is encouraged at great risk to the overall welfare of the child and later adult. Many adult and older-age illnesses can be traced back to intellectual stress in early childhood. An academically ‘successful’ young child is no guarantee of a healthy well-rounded adult.
Non-verbal activities are so pleasurable and nourishing for children, since they live in a world that is pre-verbal or early verbal. Instead of pressuring children to join us in our verbal, intellectual and technological adult world too soon, we can allow them the brief period of life that is a kind of ‘heaven’ adults imagine escaping to (plenty of rest for body and mind, few responsibilities, freedom and play).
Artbeat aims to help children enjoy this natural ‘heaven-on-earth’, for its own sake and the sake of the healthier adult that will emerge from it blessed.
• By providing opportunities for the parents, teachers and carers to learn these simple art methods Artbeat aims to take art activity out of the school art room and into the daily lives of families where healthy learning habits are best modeled.
Children mimic their parents/carers from 0-7 years of age and then model their behaviour on them from 7-14 tears of age, so if parents demonstrate a sincere connection to the creative elements in art and nature it will be more likely that they inspire the same in their children.
The workshop for adults wanting to facilitate art for children
• Artbeat teaches simple, foundational artistic skills that are profound in their impact: enhancing natural, healthy development, (cognitive and creative), and also addressing developmental problems.
• No prior skills needed, no ‘talent’ prerequisites.
• With chalk pastel and watercolour paint we use just the three primary colours (yellow, red and blue) to develop a relationship to the infinite palate of colours and shades of the external physical and internal emotional worlds e.g. the blue of the sky and the ‘blues’ that we sometimes feel as part of being human.
• With modeling clay we explore the foundational shapes that make up the material world of form but are also inherent in the inner ‘gestures’ of our emotional lives: contraction/expansion, curved/straight, round/flat
• The art activities work on two main levels
1. To allow children the chance to express in a non-verbal way (appropriate to their age and development) what can otherwise remain ‘stuck’, ‘unsaid’ and unresolved inside.
2. To provide children with the ‘medicine’ of the colours (of drawing and painting) and the holistic hand activities (of clay work).
The benefits of art for children
• Art can meet each child where they are at in their unique developmental phase of life, as it relates to the natural development of the three phase of childhood/adolescence, from 0-7, 7-14, and 14-21, instead of imposing premature learning upon them that can damage their natural development and create long term physical, mental and emotional disability.
• Art can engage children directly in their own response to creativity, which counteracts the damage of more passive forms of ‘education’ that are limited to information recall and entertainment.
• The Artbeat approach to art teaches technically simple activities that are the foundation for more complex concepts and methods: a foundation that, if bypassed, leaves a child vulnerable to intellectual overload, burnout and nervous conditions (learning difficulties, ‘depression’, anxiety, antisocial behaviors, addictions, and even later-life illnesses such as dementia etc).
Many children learn to regurgitate information or mimic tasks without understanding or feeling any connection to the meaning of what they can recall. This retards the necessary development of Emotional Intelligence (EQ), which should parallel and balance any development of Intellectual Intelligence (IQ). If intellectual academic effort is the in-breath then creative play is the out-breath.
• With colour and modeling activities the child’s invisible inner life (organic and psychological-spiritual) is nourished. Instead of waiting until signs of ‘malnourishment’ are revealed in physical, emotional or mental illnesses, we can provide the child with creative ‘food’ suitable for their stage of development.
• The increase in technology (computer games and tutorials etc) and the decrease in simple physical hand games (marbles, knitting, wood-carving etc) have meant a great loss of natural learning in children. Until the age of 14 children learn about the outer world primarily through their hands and the sense of touch, and the mechanistic movements associated with technology, coupled with the lower-body over-emphasis of games like soccer, are creating fundamental imbalances in children’s still-developing bodies.
In all the sophistication of mass-produced, modern toys there is also a loss of the quiet, relaxed, naturally and effortlessly inventive state of mind that simple activities nurture: quietly drawing purely from the imagination; hunting for sea shells; making a boat out of scraps; making a dolly out of rags.
Artbeat offers another way to play, for children teens and adults.