From the moment a toddler first bangs a wooden spoon on a saucepan or finger paints with some spaghetti sauce, they are involved in the arts. Perhaps even before that, as we play music to them in the womb, or months later, play it to lull them to sleep. When we read stories, or give them a glue stick and some leaves, a piece of paper and a crayon or chalk and the pavement, we are exposing them to something vital for their development.
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Dr David Sudmalis, acting director of community partnerships with the Australia Council for the Arts, says Australia has adopted a view of the arts where children are at the centre of the making process. Rather than simply viewing art at a gallery, for example, children are making paintings. Rather than watching performances, they are performing themselves.
''We're recognising the child as being an agent in their own creativity, being an active participant,'' he says.
''It's about expression, about being given the ability to be able to communicate in a variety of ways.''
Sudmalis says the research is showing that children who more frequently participated in the arts, be it music, art, drama or dance, also tended to be more academically engaged, academically motivated in other subjects, had higher self esteem and a greater sense of meaning in life.
''What's coming to the fore in the terms of the research is the way a whole suite of other skills are being developed
as well,'' he says. ''We talk about communication, we talk about analysis, a student's ability to be flexible, to unlearn and to relearn and to be able to be critical of their own endeavours.
''That suite of skills is always at the heart of getting on with the world.''
Here in Canberra, there is ample opportunity for children and their parents to have access to the arts. Whether or not your child's school has a sufficient art program, and many don't, as a parent it is easy to take responsibility yourself. With the school holidays upon us, what better opportunity to take everyone outside their comfort zone and experience the arts?
Rose Marin, a mother of two, moved to Canberra with her family a year ago and can't believe the access children and families have to creative places.
"We're just so incredibly lucky here in Canberra to have access to such incredible facilities and they all run really amazing programs," Marin says.
Which is something, given that Marin is the family program co-ordinator in the Learning and Access team at the National Gallery of Australia; she's speaking from both a personal and professional perspective. A qualified visual art teacher, she has worked as an educator in schools, aged-care facilities, disabilities services and tertiary institutions and earned national recognition for the programs she has run.
She believes the engagement of children in the arts is no less important than the engagement of adults and says institutions worldwide are recognising that they have to have programs specifically for children.
The Family Room at the NGA first opened in 2008 for the Degas: Master of French Art exhibition. Children of all ages were exposed to ballerinas and horses and dance halls. Other major exhibitions to incorporate the room include Masterpieces from Paris, Ballets Russes, Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons, Renaissance, Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris and the Moulin Rouge, Turner from the Tate and now Gold and the Incas.
"From the beginning, the response to the Family Room has been so overwhelmingly positive," says Marin.
"We recognise people are understanding that children and families need to be catered for. The idea of the room, this space, where they can go, which allows them to explore their own ideas,'' she says.
If the idea of institutions scares you, one of the simplest things you can do is read to your child, according to author Jackie French.
In her role as Australian Children's Laureate, she is tasked with promoting the transformational power of reading, creativity and story in the lives of young Australians and says literature plays a crucial role.
"If you want your kid to be intelligent, give them books," she says.
"Each work of fiction literally helps create new neurones as kids build up their mental muscles. If a child reads 100 books they'll have become every character within them, they'll have seen 100 worlds more deeply than they ever could on television.
''The more depth and complexity the book has, the more 'mind building' it will engender."
She says while "this is all very worthy", the real reason to give children literature is for the same reason adults read it, write it and love it.
"It's fun, even when it stretches our minds and lives or makes us cry."
