Encouraging our children to create freely, without concern for mastery or representational accuracy, helps them develop on many levels. Establishing a relationship with their creative intellect does not have to develop into a life path.

And nurturing a comfort with expressing themselves in media other than language will without question enhance their understanding of themselves, as our aesthetics figure into all of our choices, directing in a fairly fundamental way the quality of the life we will experience. Marshall Battani discusses this concept in an article titled Aura, Self and Aesthetic Experience.

Because the benefits of making and living with art cannot be overstated, let your children play freely with art materials encouraging them to simply explore the media. Exquisite things often result.

Ceramic duck, terracotta rabbit and oil pastel drawing all by Saoirse Sullivan; bronze Brooklyn Bambina by Brian Sullivan