What’s not to love about coloring? It gets children away from the screen, encourages creative expression, and gives little ones (and adults) something to do on rainy days. However, coloring isn’t just a great way to pass the time. Coloring has a lot of benefits that people find surprising. Here are just five benefits of coloring that you might not have considered yet.
Motor Skills and Handwriting
When you put a crayon in your child’s hand, you immediately engage their fine motor skills. Those skills get sharper as your child learns how to make the crayon do what they want it to do. Children who color regularly often grow up with better handwriting than children who don’t color. Coloring lets them get used to the feeling of a writing implement in their hand. If a pen is like a bicycle, then crayons are the training wheels. By coloring pictures, your child is engaging in a pre-writing activity. As a result, they may have more confidence when they start writing in kindergarten.
Early Math Skills
Did you know that coloring can improve your child’s math skills? It’s true. In fact, it’s one of the top benefits of coloring. When your child colors, they learn about lines and shapes. They’re setting a solid foundation for their earliest geometry skills. Even better, they’re learning these concepts through hands-on experiences. As a result, the concepts are more likely to stick with your child than if your child had just heard about them instead.
Stress Relief
The stress relief aspect of coloring usually comes up when we talk about coloring for adults. However, as much as we don’t like to think about it, children experience stress, too. Disagreements with friends, struggles in school, fights with siblings, and other stressors can become a big struggle. Coloring is a gentle, therapeutic activity that can take their mind off their troubles for a while.
Building Focus and Patience
One of the best benefits of coloring is the fact that it builds focus and patience. Coloring is a straightforward and simple activity, which means that focusing on it is fairly easy. However, it does require a lot of attention. For a picture to turn out the way a child wants, that child will have to focus fully. By coloring regularly, your child gets a steady, simple way to practice focusing on their tasks. Furthermore, coloring can also build patience. Not every drawing will turn out perfectly. Sometimes, a child will take several tries to create the picture that they want to create. Gradually, children who color will become more patient and even ready to try things again. They may even apply the concept to their other tasks.
Communication Tools
There’s a reason why most child psychologist offices have paper and crayons. One of the biggest benefits of coloring comes from the non-verbal expression. If your child’s coloring style sharply changes out of nowhere, then that may be a sign of a changing mindset. If your child starts drawing disturbing images, it may be a sign that your child needs help. While coloring itself is a form of non-verbal communication, it can also help with verbal communication, too. Why not color with your child while you ask them about their day? Coloring can reduce distractions for your child as they tell you what they’re thinking.
Benefits of Coloring
Do you want your child to get all of the benefits of coloring? What about make-believe and other forms of play? At Legacy Academy, children learn through our play-based curriculum. We have a science-backed routine that helps little ones to love learning. Want to see the benefits for yourself? Contact Legacy Academy in Flynn Crossing today.
