November 2024
We entered our newest title, Life Skills for Children: Art-Infuse Activities, in the 2024 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards and took 2nd place in Children’s Activity Books. This unique book addresses self-esteem, self-awareness, feelings, kindness, empathy, responsibility, and motivation, in art-infused activities that engage both hemispheres of the brain. There are no wrong answers, allowing for children to express themselves freely and honestly in SEL (Social Emotional Learning) exercises. Coloring, drawing, writing, and simple exploration of the core concepts make this journey fun and accessible.
The author, Diana Fisher, has won many other awards—both literary and artistic—through the years. Diana says: “I’m encouraged to see value recognized in this part of the learning process. Our educational system has for some years diminished the creative arts in school curriculums, and has not prioritized basic life skills needed for children to flourish and become well-rounded, successful adults. I’m hoping to get this book into more classrooms.” Life Skills for Children is already placed in some California school districts.
In an increasingly digitalized world, emphasis is geared toward technology. This trajectory is understandable, but is it balanced? However technologically advanced we may get as a species, relationships, emotional intelligence, and coping mechanisms for the dynamic nature of living life are still at issue. In addition, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) all benefit from creativity.
“After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well.” — Albert Einstein
Whatever the career path a child ends up pursuing, the arts will support and enhance. Diana’s approach to writing and illustrating Life Skills for Children takes this into consideration. While targeting key Emotional Learning concepts, Life Skills for Children activates a whole-brain experience. Even if a child who cannot draw yet only scribbles when coloring, motor skills and creativity are still being developed.
Diana: “I had the privilege of teaching art to emotionally-challenged teenagers—ranging from 13-17 years old—in my 20s. This experience was very enlightening regarding human psychological expression. Each of my students played out, acted out, revealed and exposed their various issues in some form of art. Here, I was wiser than my years, and decided from the beginning that I would: 1. Not give out grades since these students had failed out of the mainstream public school due to disruptive behavior, and I wanted there to be free expression without judgment, and 2. I would let the students decide what art materials they wanted to use. So each art class I would set out all the materials and they would literally all rush in and grab what they wanted (oddly, they all gravitated to different things), and got right to it with no prompting from me. I just browsed around offering encouragement, assistance, and support. I also asked questions.
“One student grabbed the exact same materials every class: clay. He was a tall 15-year-old, and had been expelled from public school for “violent behavior.” He created the same scene with the clay every class as well—a battle. He would start by creating the defenses with layered sandbags and the soldiers of each side of the battle. Then the battle would be played out. I noticed at one point that he never left any soldiers standing. I asked him why. He said, ‘Because nobody wins in a war.’
“Another student, 16 years old at the time, had been raped as a 6-year-old. In art class he liked to draw. One drawing was a picture of himself with no bottom half (nothing below the waste), floating up to the sky where he drew Jesus with open arms. I know this because I asked him who the person in the clouds was, and who the person below was and what that person was doing. I began working in conjunction with the staff psychiatrist identifying therapeutic approaches based on the students’ artwork. I recognized then the efficacy of free expression in bringing troubled emotions to the surface.
“But this also works for life-affirming emotions. One good example is the idea of ‘talent.’ I have been told countless times by a wide variety of people—regardless of how successful—that they aren’t talented. This could be due to the cultural tendency to define talent as artistic (artist, musician, etc.). I explain that talent can be anything, for example, being good with people, cleaning a house, organizing. This almost always evokes surprise.
“Bringing authenticity to the surface by allowing nonjudgmental expression, reveals not only hidden traumas or conflicts if there are any, but very importantly, unrealized potential.”
Incidentally, Diana’s students, as a group, placed in a state art competition the year she taught them.
“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy
With so much (local, national, and global) competition in the world today, and so much changing technologically at so fast a pace, the future our children are facing is difficult to imagine. It is understandable that parents want to prepare their children as best they can to meet future challenges in career and society. Let us not forget that careers, finances, cars, houses, politics, and all the many facets of temporal life in the details, is undergirded by an authentic self, a balanced mind, emotional intelligence, and the ability to have healthy relationships (including the relationship with self). With a healthy foundation, children, and later as adults, can navigate the ups and downs of life effectively.
This is where Life Skills for Children is serving the educational system and the parents and their children. It kicks off the journey of Social Emotional Learning in a unique, engaging, art-infused way. The path to becoming a successful, well-adjusted adult begins now, in childhood.
