By Todd Parks
New Song School of the Arts
“Look, Mom! Look, Dad! I made this!”
Every parent has heard those words. Your child comes running toward you holding a painting, a sculpture, a drawing, or perhaps something you can’t immediately identify. You smile, tell them how wonderful it is, and eventually it finds its way onto the refrigerator, a shelf, or into that ever-growing box of childhood treasures. To us, it may be a piece of paper covered in paint. To them, it is a masterpiece. But there may be something even more important happening. What your child made may matter far less than what the process of making it is doing for your child.
Arts education asks children to do something remarkable: imagine something that doesn’t exist yet and then figure out how to make it real. Whether they are taking music lessons, participating in theatre classes, or creating in an art class, children are constantly planning, remembering, making decisions, solving problems, adjusting, and trying again. Researchers refer to some of these abilities as executive functions—the mental processes involved in skills such as planning, working memory, self-control, and flexible thinking. In one longitudinal study of 147 primary-school children followed for 2½ years, researchers found that structured music education was associated with improvements in planning and inhibition, while visual arts education was associated with stronger visuospatial memory performance (Jaschke, Honing & Scherder, 2018).
And then something doesn't work. The paint runs. The note is wrong. The scene doesn't come together the first time. The child has a choice: stop, or figure out another way. From an adult's perspective, these can seem like insignificant moments. But they are opportunities to practice skills children will need for years to come. School will eventually present harder problems. Friendships will become more complicated. College and careers will require greater independence. Someday, an employer may hand that same child a problem for which there is no instruction sheet. Long before that day arrives, experiences in music, theatre and visual arts can give children repeated opportunities to encounter uncertainty, make choices, respond to feedback, revise their thinking, and keep going.
The benefits of arts education may reach even further. A large randomized study involving more than 10,000 students across 42 schools found that increased access to arts education produced measurable improvements in several academic and social outcomes. Students receiving additional arts experiences had fewer disciplinary infractions, improved writing achievement, and greater compassion for others. Among elementary students, researchers also found improvements in school engagement and college aspirations (Bowen & Kisida, 2019; Bowen & Kisida, 2023). Those findings are particularly interesting because they remind us that the value of arts education for children isn't necessarily found in whether a child eventually becomes a professional musician, actor, or artist. The skills developed through creating can have value regardless of the career a child ultimately chooses.
Perhaps that's why we should be careful about judging children's creations by adult standards. The crooked drawing doesn't need to be straighter to have value. The missed note isn't simply a mistake to eliminate. The awkward first rehearsal isn't something to rush through on the way to the polished performance. These moments are part of the learning. A child is discovering that improvement can come through effort, experimentation, instruction, feedback, and persistence. Research doesn't suggest that every arts experience automatically produces every developmental benefit, and the effects vary depending on the type, quality, and duration of instruction. But the evidence increasingly gives parents good reason to value the process taking place inside an art studio, music lesson, theatre rehearsal, or creative arts classroom—not simply the finished product that comes home afterward.
So the next time your child runs toward you saying, “Look what I made!” take another look. You may be holding a painting, listening to a song, or watching a scene that will eventually be forgotten. But underneath that small creation, something much bigger may be taking shape. At New Song School of the Arts, we believe music, theatre and art give children opportunities to create today while developing skills they can carry into tomorrow, next year, college, a future career, and eventually a life of their own. Today, your child may have made a picture, learned a song, or performed a scene. In the process, they were also making a little piece of the person they are becoming.
References
Jaschke, A. C., Honing, H., & Scherder, E. J. A. (2018). “Longitudinal Analysis of Music Education on Executive Functions in Primary School Children.” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 103.
Bowen, D. H., & Kisida, B. (2019). Investigating Causal Effects of Arts Education Experiences: Experimental Evidence from Houston’s Arts Access Initiative. Houston Education Research Consortium.
Bowen, D. H., & Kisida, B. (2023). “Investigating the Causal Effects of Arts Education.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 42(3), 624–647.
To learn more about the author, Todd Parks, click HERE.