Modeling Clay Can Relive stress in kids

Many children today suffer from stress and anxiety.

I would like to suggest playing with clay as an alternative to helping children with stress.

Scheduling time to play with clay at least once a week can lead to beneficial stress relief.

As parent or caregiver you can provide lots of other helpful aids in managing stress; better nutrition, adequate sleep, less anxiety-provoking situations, positive assuring words and more simple time to relax and just be a kid.

In my art classes I’ve witnessed positive results with children exploring clay in a playful manner which always leads to relaxation.

Most of my art activities like clay play is multi-sensory engaging and helps children relax and play calmly.

It’s common knowledge unstructured simple play is healthy for young children developing.

In my new book “Clay Play” I discuss deeply about how touching clay induces stimulating neural in-put from most of our sensory senses.

Touching clay induce stimulating neural in-put from most of our sensory senses.

When a young child starts touching, forming or modeling it’s considered active learning.

Playing with clay is a high visual-auditory connectivity in the brain.

Any type of clay can work!

Many types of clay are available for this type of exploring.

Only use non-toxic child grade products.

You can use any type of clay, in fact you should allow children to try all different types of clay at some point in time.

You can also make quick easy modeling dough from simple kitchen ingredients.

Clay can be non-hardening, air-hardening or baked to harden.

Natural modeling beeswax can also be used for clay play forming.

You can order these types of clay online or find them in most craft and art supply store.

What should children make with clay?

To promote relaxation you should allow the child to explore their hand work with minimal instruction.

Keep this time relaxing and to child-led creating. Simple projects can be guided by making forms like rolling a ball or snake coil shapes as a starting point.

Visit our blog archives or Pinterest pages for clay play ideas.

If you want to learn more out the benefits and how to set up for clay modeling projects, check out my paperback book “Clay Play”.

Warmly,

Spramani

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