Celebrating Confidence & Self-Expression With Forts
Posted March 6, 2020 by Fort Magic
Fort building has been a fun part of childhood for centuries. It’s interesting to see how science is now confirming that fort building is actually an essential part of healthy development. Fort Magic wants to help your children blossom into successful, healthy adults by building their confidence through creative expression.
Benefits of Encouraging Self-Expression in Kids
Allowing your kids to express themselves is vital to their physical and emotional development. Using a creative outlet, such as fort building, to help them express themselves has many benefits that will carry over into their adulthood.
1. Helps with Emotional Development
When kids start going through the process of building a fort, they use parts of their brain that help them develop healthy emotional regulation. They get to express themselves in other ways besides verbal expression. This process is what helps them to go on to be adults that are less prone to depression and anxiety.
2. Helps with Physical Development
Fort building helps with physical development. They get to develop the pathways in their brain that control fine and gross motor skills. Gross motor skills are developed as they play the games in their forts such as if you turn it into an obstacle course. The fine motor skills are developed in the actual fort building process such as when they attach the fabric clips.
3. Celebrates Each Child As an Individual
Creative expression helps kids see themselves as individuals. When they get to build a fort, you can’t go wrong. It’s all about the process and not necessarily the outcome. Kids who get to express themselves have a stronger identity of self and who they are.
4. Boosts Confidence
The creative expression that comes through fort building is a great way to boost confidence in kids who are afraid of failure. If something isn’t working out then they simply remove a piece and try a new piece. Once they build that first successful fort that matches what they had in their minds, then they’ll have the confidence to try other new things.
Each time they succeed, they will have less fear and more confidence to try bigger things. Soon, as they continue with this creative expression, they will have the confidence to try new things outside of fort building.
5. Develops Problem-Solving Skills
Fort building is one of the best ways to encourage their problem-solving skills in a safe environment. They get to experiment with different pieces and approaches to fort building until they find a way that works. If your child is getting frustrated because nothing is working then have a brainstorming session where you can both suggest ideas.
Your child can then try out each idea until something works. This is the foundation for solving problems and will carry over into their adulthood. They can then use this process to solve bigger problems as an adult, especially in the workplace.
How You Can Help Build Confidence in Kids
Another important aspect of creative expression is building confidence. However, there are a few important things to consider as an adult if you want to create an environment that builds their confidence. First, make sure you give plenty of praise for their efforts, even if it’s not what leads to the desired results.
Secondly, make sure you keep your efforts hands-off. Kids build confidence by doing things themselves and this will only happen if adults resist the urge to step in and help out. Lastly, come up with age-appropriate challenges and questions that will inspire them as they go and help them to learn through the process.
Creative Expression with Forts
Fort building in itself will help with this self-expression, even if they follow the steps to build a pre-designed fort. In fact, we suggest you start with these if you’re new to Fort Magic. After your kids get familiar with the process, then they’ll have the confidence to step outside of the box. They can start creating anything that their imagination can come up with.
Inspire them by hosting a fort building challenge to see what they can design. Or, you can encourage their creativity to see if they can build a fort that goes along with what you’re learning. For example, if you’re learning about early Viking history, then you can ask them to first draw out and then construct a Viking ship fort.
Photo Credits:
The Artful Parent Blog: One of our absolute favorite creative blogs for children and families. The Artful Parent blog is filled with simple ideas to fill your family’s life with art and creativity. A must-see blog for sure.
Rave & Review Blog: The fun Rave & Review blog is where you’ll find loads of sharing on your favorite products for parents and grandparents all the way to newborns.
Fort Magic Customer Photos via Facebook: Visit our Fort Magic Facebook page to see our customer creativity shine with fun pics and videos of families enjoying their Fort Magic kit during playtime.
Fort Magic Customer Photos via Instagram: Visit our Fort Magic Instagram page to see our customer creativity shine with fun pics and videos of families enjoying their Fort Magic kit during playtime.
