Erica Curtis - The Innovative Parent: Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art

PRAISE FOR THE INNOVATIVE PARENT:

With this wonderful guide you will find a fun and effective way to make your connections with your kids more fulfilling, while cultivating resilience and joy in their lives. Erica Curtis and Ping Ho provide artistic activities involving music, visual images, and dance for deep enrichment and enhancing our relationships with our children as they growwith innovation, collaboration, and resilience front and center. Bravo, and thank you!

Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, University of California, Los Angeles (New York Times bestselling author of The Whole-Brain Child, Parenting from the Inside Out, and Brainstorm)

In crafting The Innovative Parent, Erica Curtis and Ping Ho have condensed decades of experience, both academically and on the front lines of their own lives, into a lively must-read for anyone invested in the self-awareness, success, and health of future generations. It provides compelling and easily digestible instruction for any parent, but also for educators, clinicians, researchers, program administrators, and community health practitioners, who will join parents in benefiting from this books combination of witty observations and practical guidance. Designed for use by both novice and expert, the books deep insights into the child-learners mind and heart provide a beckoning path forward for anyone intrigued by the ability of the arts to engage, activate, inspire, and teach.

Dr. Jeremy Nobel, Harvard University (founder, The Foundation for Art and Healing)

What adult wouldnt benefit from a creative approach to connecting with and engaging kidstheirs or not? Parents and professionals will find ways to promote cooperation, further social-emotional growth, and facilitate fun in the process. Grounded in studies from a variety of disciplines, as well as arts therapy practice, this book will introduce readers to practical techniques for use with people of all ages and challenges, also making it a guide to self-parenting.

Barry M. Cohen, board-certified art therapist and coauthor of Managing Traumatic Stress through Art

The Innovative Parent manages to avoid the pitfalls of countless parenting books and tools. It offers sensitive, creative, and mindful parenting techniques that are specific yet flexible. While no child comes with an instruction manual, this book is the closest Ive found to one in anchoring meboth as a parent and as a creative personin what I know.

Dr. Einat Metzl, board-certified art therapist and Chair, Loyola Marymount University Department of Marital and Family Therapy

THE INNOVATIVE PARENT

The Innovative Parent

Raising Connected, Happy, Successful Kids through Art

Erica Curtis and Ping Ho

SWALLOW PRESS

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

ATHENS

Swallow Press

An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

ohioswallow.com

2019 by Ohio University Press

All rights reserved

To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).

Printed in the United States of America

Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Curtis, Erica (Licensed marriage and family therapist), author. | Ho, Ping (Integrative medicine specialist), author.

Title: The innovative parent : raising connected, happy, successful kids through art / Erica Curtis and Ping Ho.

Description: Athens, Ohio : wallow Press/Ohio University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018061234| ISBN 9780804012140 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780804012157 (pbk) | ISBN 9780804040983 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Parenting. | Arts and children.

Classification: LCC HQ755.8 .C88 2019 | DDC 306.874--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018061234

To Corbyn, Isla, and Darian My steady sources of innovation, inspiration, and joy.

E.C.

To Eve and Halle With whom I sing, dance, drum, and laugh.

P.H.

. .. And to a world full of connected, happy, and successful children.

Contents

Preface

The task of parenting is like passing a baton from one generation to the next.

We all inherited a baton from our parents, which they inherited from theirs, and so on. Our parents did the best they could with whatever baton they were dealt. Perhaps they added decorative ribbons. Or made some cracks of their own in it. We were handed that batonvarnish, barbed wire, splinters, colorful paint, and all. We start with this.

When we parent, we pass the baton to our children. What we hand to them, in part, is what we have inherited. But we can improve upon what we pass on to them. We can remove tattered ribbons. Sand down splinters. Polish it. Attach embellishments of our own. It wont be perfect, but it can be better than before. And our children will have the same chance to make it better yet, for their children.

This process of change requires innovationcreative thinking, experimentation, and learning from mistakes for improvement. Innovative parenting is a state of mind. It requires stretching yourself as a person. It means trying something different so that your children will do the same.

Drawing, painting, cutting, taping, tearing, building, destroying, mixing, scraping, attaching, tracing, smearing, pounding, scratching, stamping, sticking, bending, sewing, dripping. Making art not only reflects what is going on inside but also has the capacity to transform it. As such, it holds a wealth of potential for enriching the lives of our children, as well as our own. I see this regularly in my art therapy practice and workshops, and at home with my own children. The experience of making, observing, and talking about art nurtures developing minds, emotional worlds, and relationships.

Whats more, research supports this.

This book pulls together anecdotal experience from years of clinical art therapy practice with children, teens, and parents, along with research from the fields of psychology, child development, creativity, anthropology, and neuroscience. It offers insight into childrens art as something more than refrigerator decor. We will explore how making and talking about art can help children make sense of emotions, build connections with others, cultivate empathy, develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, process and retain information, and more. These are complex aspirations for something as seemingly simple as making art, yet therein lies the beauty of art for furthering the goals of parenting. It is wonderfully simple and doable. And fun. Good news for not-so-artsy folks: this book is for you, too.

Far from being an arts and crafts book, The Innovative Parent is about breaking the conventional mold of parenting by applying creative thinking and exercises to raising children. At its essence, its about becoming an innovative parent. It not only offers creative tools for raising connected, happy, and successful kids but also empowers you to find your own creativity to survive tough times during the day and access parenting skills that you possess but lose in the momentwhen stressed, tired, or overwhelmed.

While this book is written for parents, it is also for anyone who cares for or works with children or adolescents: grandparents, caregivers, mentors, and professionals in education, mental health, community arts, health care, recreation, social services, spiritual care, and more. It empowers all to nurture kids with art, whether by opening communication, building tolerance for frustration, or teaching limits and responsibility. After all, the skills that children master when making and talking about art will last well beyond the activity itself and apply to other facets of their lives. Likewise, the skills that we adults master, when facilitating projects and commenting on art, will seep into other interactions with our children, helping us become more versatile, attuned, and resourceful as parents.