The Art of Survival
Children often become absorbed in using art to give form to their life experiences. When those life experiences are catastrophic events, children may spontaneously draw pictures of the crises they faced and the ordeals they endured. You can also invite them to give expression to their own resilience and resourcefulness during this troubled time. Drawing pictures or writing about their perseverance, resourcefulness, and creativity gives children a wonderful chance to recognize their own strengths and contributions to the rebuilding process. They can also use drawings or stories to acknowledge the help that others gave them, the lessons they have learned from this experience, and in what ways they have grown from this experience.
Children are active, resilient survivors. The purpose of this section of our web site is to provide a forum for children's art of surviving. We post the creative contributions of children who share their stories of endurance, courage, compassion, joy and hope. We are interested in hearing what advice young survivors would give others who may face a similar catastrophe. We are intrigued to know how they were able to face dangers, deal with uncertainties, and overcome obstacles.
We invite you to email us examples of children's art of surviving. We will post them here, with a first name, age, and school or home community, if you desire. The art may take many forms. For example, it could be a scene showing how they escaped danger, learned something new, helped others, or overcame an obstacle. They might design a poster showing what kids could do to be better prepared for a disaster or what kids could tell themselves as they face a crisis. If you are a parent, teacher, caretaker or friend of children who've survived a natural disaster, act of terrorism or some other catastrophe, we welcome their creative contributions of drawings and stories. Please send to Lennis Echterling, Ph.D. at echterlg at jmu.edu or Anne Stewart, Ph.D. at stewaral at jmu.edu . Thank you!
