Art Therapy for Children

A child’s standing in society is determined by their legal right to healthcare, sound education, protection, and treatment. When discussing art therapy, it is worth noting that symbols, colors, “scribbles,” and drawings—which develop as the child grows—are essential parts of a child’s world. Art in general also serves as an additional language for children: a symbolic, nonverbal language and an alternative means of communication through which they can express themselves and their feelings and emotions, their private world, fears, and dreams, spontaneously, smoothly, simply, and without complexity.

Art therapy provides children and adolescents with a safe space in which to address different emotional difficulties through expression and creativity. It engages all of the child’s or adolescent’s mental, psychological-emotional, physical, sensory, motor, and creative capacities. As for the relationship between the child and the therapist, it develops gradually through their shared meetings over the course of therapy. This relationship is built on mutual trust until the therapeutic space becomes a place where personal abilities and difficulties at different levels can be brought into focus, whether through artistic work, conversation, or structured or unstructured play. This helps bring the child’s difficulties or abilities forward and address them either directly with the child or with the parents’ participation.

The child or adolescent chooses the method that suits them for expressing their inner world. The artistic element helps broaden both the scope and capacity for expression and provides an additional space for building a relationship, while organizing and stimulating thought. The art therapy room offers a good opportunity to put this into practice, as it contains many art materials and provides different methods and ways of working to suit each child’s individual needs.

Through art therapy, children and adolescents learn how to express themselves and acquire new ways of dealing with feelings, difficulties, and abilities that they cannot understand and internalize on their own. The art therapist helps the child recognize their inner world and the world around them, acknowledge feelings and content that emerge during therapy, express themselves, their feelings, emotions, and private world, and understand what is happening around them by paying attention to the direct and indirect symbols they express. This helps the child connect with themselves and their surroundings through the development of a safe, healthy human relationship based on respect, acceptance, understanding, and emotional support.

For children around the age of three, for example, therapy may help them face the difficulties and developmental issues characteristic of this age, such as difficulties with weaning, fear, sleep problems, forming relationships, belonging in a new setting, integrating with peers, and jealousy. Children at this age have a significant need for intensive engagement and interaction with materials that have different properties, which can be provided through art therapy.