Coloring with Your Kids

Put that iPad away for a few minutes, and take out a pad of paper and some crayons! Did you know that your kids could benefit greatly from spending a few minutes per day coloring rather than watching TV?

Coloring can help your kids develop their fine motor skills, especially when they are very young – even if they refuse to color inside the lines! Learning how to hold a crayon or colored pencil and draw lines across the page, though it sounds simple, will help your child develop the fine motor skills that they will need eventually to succeed with a variety of tasks in their daily lives.

ColoringColoring can also help your kids learn self-control and build self-esteem. Sitting still while coloring a whole page will help to teach them patience. Then, when they admire the finished product, they’ll start to understand what it’s like to work for something and be proud of the finished product.

Encourage your child to explore his or her creative side while you color together. For example, a tree’s leaves don’t have to be green, they can be purple, too! Coloring will allow your child to have an outlet where he or she can create and explore.

You can enjoy quiet quality playtime with your child while he or she colors, and there are some benefits in it for you, too. Recent studies suggest that coloring can greatly help adults to relive stress and anxiety. Experts suggest that when we color, we focus on the task at hand, and forget about what is worrying us. Some researchers have suggested that coloring reminds us of our childhoods, when we had less big things to worry about.

As you can see, coloring can be really beneficial for your whole family. If you’re skeptical, it’s easy to test it out: print out a few pages from the Internet and give it a try. See if your kids respond to the activity, and see if it helps reduce the stress in your own life!

Coloring is just one of the many fun and educational activities that your child can participate at Children’s Enchanted Learning Center. The early childhood programs at their Pasadena, Texas, location are a great way to expand your kid’s horizons and help them develop lifelong skills. For more information on our programs or to schedule a visit, contact us today at 281-991-3999.