On Child Development

ICAF plays an important role in influencing the artistic development of young children at a critical point in their childhood. ICAF helps young children realize and achieve their artistic potential. ICAF positively and progressively affects children�s artistic development, especially when supportive environmental influences may be lacking. To understand where on the child development road map ICAF appears, one must look briefly at the developmental process and the environmental factors that influence development.

Environment and Development

An almost infinite number of environmental or external factors affect a child�s development both adversely and positively. Experts have identified four different layers of environmental influences on a child. The lowest level is the microsystem of the immediate surroundings with which the child interacts - the family, the neighborhood, and the school. The next level is the mesosystem, which describes the ways in which the levels in the microsystem interact with one another - such as home, school, and neighborhood. The third is exosystem which refers to social settings that do not contain children but have influence over them; for example, major institutions or formal organizations of the child�s society, including the mass media, political systems, systems of transportation, economic conditions, and parent�s social networks. The child is influenced indirectly by the exosystem but does not come into direct contact with it.

Finally, the macrosystem, the highest level of environmental influence, which reflects general cultural attitudes and beliefs about the needs of children; for example, values, laws, customs of cultures, general cultural attitudes and beliefs about needs of children.

This ecological approach to layers of environment suggests that intervention at any level of the environment can enhance development. Childhood development occurs within a complex system of relationships influenced by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from immediate settings to broad cultural values, laws, and customs. Just as heredity plays a significant part in development, so does the child�s environment - a many layered set of influences that combine with one another to help or hinder the course of growth. Cultural values and life conditions affect the environments of children, as do political and economic conditions.

ICAF as Catalyst

All those who surround children in one way or another and touch their lives directly or indirectly � be it a schoolteacher, a parent, a congressman, or an organization � exercise influence on the child. ICAF positions itself at the mesosystem level where it interacts with children through their schools. In essence, the catalytic role of ICAF can enhance, in particular, the artistic development of children and, in general, other developmental characteristics by fostering children�s imagination and creativity. ICAF encourages children to employ their creativity and imagination to create artworks. Such endeavors enhance not only the artistic development of children but also their personal, intellectual, and emotional growth.

Self-esteem & ICAF

During middle childhood, children look at more people for information about themselves as they enter a wider range of settings in school and community. This is reflected in children�s frequent reference to social groups in their self-descriptions. Thereby, self-esteem (judgment children make about their own worth) is recognized in middle childhood.

Children at school age first develop complete self-evaluation, and it is this global evaluation of one�s worth that is usually referred to as self-esteem, which can be a product of two internal assessments or judgments.

First, each child experiences some degree of discrepancy between what he would like to be (or thinks he ought to be) and what he thinks he is. When that discrepancy is small, the child�s self-esteem is generally high. When he sees himself as failing to live up to his own goals or values, self-esteem will be much lower. Being good at something will not raise a child�s self-esteem unless the child values that particular skill.

The second major influence on a child�s self-esteem may be overall sense of support the child feels from the important people around him, particularly parents and peers. In this matter, ICAF paints two birds with one brush. ICAF values each child and his ability to create, and ICAF secures national and international support for the overall creativity of children. Participating children also come in personal contact with other peers who share the same interests in and hold high value for art. The support of parents and teachers is amplified by their presence at ICAF�s art festivals, which holds great importance for the child, for what is important to the child is seen as important to the adult.

Child Development & ICAF

ICAF provides opportunities and incentives across the globe for schoolchildren to think and create imaginatively. All children need the opportunity to realize their creative potential even if they have not experienced much motivation and encouragement. ICAF�s programs provide such support.

A creative spirit is present in everyone; its first manifestations are to be encouraged, not stifled. Child artists may become the artists, the painters, and the designers of tomorrow. Others will divert their creativity into fields better suited to their specific talents and inclinations. In releasing creative energies, many children experience a personal satisfaction that can be emotionally stabilizing and ego-supportive. Encouraging creative expression, especially in the young, is more essential today than ever before. Many forces in the modern world tend to stifle the child�s need for self-expression through creative endeavor. Mental stability is threatened, as youth must choose whether to conform, reform, drop out, or destroy.

The following observations explain ICAF�s positioning as an influential factor in the general environmental layers surrounding children (in ecological systems theory):

• ICAF�s belief that the absence of inhibitory intervention teaches children to be totally dependent on their own spontaneous imaginative creativity when expressing their ideas.
• ICAF�s role as a socializing agent brings together children of the same age group and different backgrounds to communicate through the language of art.
• Children gain a sense of importance and respect when their views of the world are publicized through art by ICAF.
• ICAF program participation helps enlighten children to the importance of artistic creativity and helps rid children�s minds of possible negative attitudes about art.
• ICAF�s programs instill in children at an early age the awareness of the existence of diversified cultures, languages, and social phenomenon.
• ICAF believes that children should have the freedom to think their own thoughts, to seek the unfamiliar and to act creatively. A chance discovery is often the first step in development of artistic and scientific creativity.
• As members of ICAF, children gain a sense of group identity which helps them acquire social skills, practice cooperation, and develop a sense of loyalty to common goals.
• Children�s strong desire for group belonging during middle childhood is met in the shape of formal group ties with ICAF and its members, thereby advancing their social and moral understanding.
• Children will feel the genuine support and positive attitude towards their art from adults, parents, peers, teachers, and other important people and organizations around them. ICAF has favorable influence on child�s self-esteem and self worth.
• ICAF believes that creative thinking involves divergent thinking. Children learn the ability to branch out from a starting point to reach a variety of possibilities.
• ICAF programs provide an educational opportunity for children, exposing many children for the first time to cultural diversity and artistic differences of their peers around the world.

Right Time for Child Art

As one field expert so beautifully stated, "the flowering of child art is real and powerful but like other flora, it is seasonal." This expert believes that if drawing were an endorsed basic skill, we should encounter less of a decline in drawing in modern society. Ambivalence about whether one should draw and, if so, in what manner, seems responsible in significant measure for the decline in artistry in many cultures.

ICAF aims to bring out, sustain, and nurture spontaneity and creativity in children of tender creative age and give them a sense of importance and value to their art work. At issue is not only the aesthetic quality of the child�s work but the child�s creative effort.

Target Age Group, Membership & Niche

Despite a growing recognition of the value of child art and its vital role in both nurturing development and fostering universal communication, child art has not received the global attention that it deserves. The adult art establishment does not take child art seriously. Many cultures do not value it. Some parents dismiss it. Many teachers overlook it. It is ICAF�s mission to elevate and promote child art.

Taget Age Group

Based on the developmental continuum, ICAF focuses its programs on children who are approximately 8- to 12-years-old. This age group falls into a specific development stage in the continuum, which is sometimes referred to as the concrete operations stage. During this period of intense intellectual growth, children gain the ability to organize material on a higher, more general level. Intellectual realism gives way to visual realism. No longer dominated by perceptions, the child�s enhanced objectivity is reflected in the more realistic proportions of objects in drawings. Concept now dominates perception, and not the other way around.

ICAF focuses on its target age group while bearing in mind that there is no demarcation that separates one stage of development from the next. In progressing toward maturity, each stage evolves into the next while retaining its own features.

Target Population

The world population of 8- to 12-year-olds is estimated at 600 million in 1998, or about 10 percent of total world population. China and India each have over 110 million children in this age group, whereas Indonesia and the U.S. have approximately 20 million children. Other countries with large target populations are Pakistan (18 million), Brazil (17 million), Bangladesh (16 million), Nigeria (15 million), and Russia and Mexico (11.5 million each). Table 1 below provides country data on the 8- to 12-year-old age group.

Out of the target population of 600 million children worldwide, ICAF can only reasonably serve a small percentage at this time. ICAF�s outreach program currently focuses on schools as the best medium to reach its target age group and to promote arts education. Over time ICAF will develop alternative programs to include children who are unable to obtain formal schooling.