Children and Drama
A Creativity Institute
Guest Column
Drama - The Most Important Subject?
By Marilynn McLachlan
So,
you've got a child at school, and they know how to read and write
well. Perhaps they do very well academically.
This is, of course, very important,
but how well does your child communicate orally? Are they a confident,
clear speaker?
Chances are, that within the school
system, your child spends the majority of time focused on writing
and reading skills, while not so much time on oratory ones. If
you look objectively at your own life for a single day, you will
notice that most of your interactions with other people require
you to know how to speak and listen well. Good oral communicators
find it easier to make friends and will find it easier in the
long term to find and hold good jobs.
Good oratory skills are only one
of the benefits that learning drama gives your child.
Here are some more:
· In learning drama, your
child is learning a wide range of appropriate (and inappropriate)
ways of communicating. They learn to project their voice and to
speak words clearly.
· Your child learns those
subtle cues that we all give away when we are interacting with
someone else. It may mean a mannerism, or understanding that someone
is angry even when they say they are not but their
lips are tightened in a line, arms are folded across the chest.
· In learning drama, your
child is learning that important quality of empathy. It allows,
if only briefly, for the actor to experience how someone else
thinks and acts.
· Your child learns how
to act, obviously. This may seem a weird thing who but actors
need to act? We do. We do it every single day. We put on a smile
at the checkout lady when we really feel like crap. We go to a
job interview, terribly nervous and yet hide our nerves (that
is act).
· Drama works to promote
your child's imagination. Imagination is one of life's essential
ingredients. Take for example, the teenager who has just been
'dumped' by their boyfriend. In amongst the tears and heartache,
imagination (if it has been allowed to develop) begins to take
hold. The 'minds eye' starts working, and the teen can begin to
see other possibilities a new boyfriend, or how staying
single could actually be a good thing. It starts as a seed and
grows until what was imagined becomes reality.
· Imagination gives life
excitement it keeps things interesting. Even our top scientists
need an imagination. In order to find a cure for cancer, for example,
the scientist must first be able to imagine a cure.
·
Drama, by its very nature requires that the child be put into
circumstances physically, mentally and emotionally
that are outside their understanding of how things should be.
This helps them to grow as a person.
So, you can see that by encouraging
drama both at school and in the home, you are giving your child
some enormous personal benefits that will stay with them long
into adulthood.
Marilynn McLachlan
Author: "The New Parent Code: 12 Vital Clues to Achieving
Modern Family Sanity",
Penguin Books, 2005.
To learn more about encouraging
creativity (and a whole lot more) in YOUR home, visit her site
http://www.marilynnmclachlan.com. Sign up for her free ezine and
take the $20 dress-up box challenge.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
MORE ON CHILD CREATIVITY
Make
your child
more creative for life.
Every child has creative
ability just waiting to be tapped. Even infants have budding creative
potential. The right educational toys can bring it out. and let
children enjoy the benefits of creative pursuits at many levels.
Infants,
toddlers,
preschoolers,
early
school age and older
school age children all delight in opportunities for creative
expression through colors, shapes and sounds.
At The Creativity Institute, we handpick each infant educational
toy, every creative plaything, each piece of furniture and every
toy musical instrument based on its potential for developing vital
creative resources in your child.
Toy
pianos, oversized
foam building blocks, puppet
theaters and puppet stages and people
and animal hand puppets, art
supplies and children's
easels, play
tents and more. The scale and durability of many of these
toys make them perfect for classrooms, homeschool,
day care centers and waiting rooms, too. The benefits of nurturing
creativity can be profound, offering children tools for success
in all endeavors athletic, artistic or academic. Let your baby
begin now.