Coloring Mandalas: This Is How It Helps Children

Mandalas can also be of great benefit to children with special needs, as they help them relax and strengthen the ability to achieve goals.

Coloring mandalas is a very popular therapeutic art. For some years now, their use in classrooms has proved to be a source of great benefits for the physical and emotional development of children. It is, therefore, a technique to be taken into consideration.

It is a simple and inexpensive but ideal resource for improving the child’s concentration, imagination and even the ability to express emotions.

Today, in our space, we want to explain to you why the relaxing exercise of coloring mandalas is of great benefit for the little ones.

Mandalas: the art of the circle

The psychiatrist Gustav Jung said that the mandala (“circle” in Sanskrit) is that essential and transcendental figure that represents balance and perfection.

The human brain, in the course of evolution, has introjected figures and images capable of offering calm and harmony.

• The figure of the circle transmits to children a “visual limit” at the center of which there is imagination, movement and magic. Outside this circle, there is chaos.
• The mandala is a visual stimulus that invites the little ones to create, to imagine, to find harmony in disorder.
• For Buddhists, mandalas help us “structure” our inner essence.

For these reasons, coloring mandalas is an excellent exercise to propose to the child from an early age.

Coloring mandalas: a strategy to improve concentration

If we add the visual beauty of mandalas to the natural fascination that children feel for colors and coloring activity, we will obtain the perfect combination to achieve the following objectives:

• When they color, the children are silent and concentrate. There are more or less complex mandalas and the greater their diversity, the greater the cognitive processes that children will use: attention, flexibility, imagination, etc.
• A mandala must be completed to create an effect, a visual and emotional impact. Children know this and will work on it until it is completed to be able to show it to you proud.
• This need to finish the mandala stimulates the child’s ability to achieve their goals and a sense of responsibility.

Mandalas: allies of children with special needs

Nowadays, many educators and pedagogists propose mandalas to children with special needs.

• Coloring mandalas is very useful, for example, to children with Down syndrome or autism; it allows them to relax, to control their movements and to find a good medium to express themselves.
• Children suffering from ADHD (attention deficit syndrome with or without hyperactivity) really enjoy this exercise. Coloring the mandalas relaxes them, allows them to focus and strengthens their ability to achieve goals.

Development of fine motor skills and eye-manual coordination

We are always surprised when we see the ability of the little ones with new technologies: they scroll the screen, open messages, enlarge images …

The visual stimulus from cell phones and screens is very useful, but used in excess can over-excite their senses and brain. It is necessary to limit the use of these technologies as much as possible.

On the contrary, coloring mandalas is of great benefit to the maturity of a child’s brain.  There are several reasons:

• Promotes eye-manual coordination.
• The movements needed to grasp the colors and use them help improve brain connections. It is important to stimulate them gradually and constantly, especially in children between 2 and 8 years of age.
• Thanks to all this, we will see improvement in writing precision, the way objects are handled, the ability to tie shoes …
• They will be able to focus better on daily activities and ignore distractions, as coloring mandalas dramatically improves their attention span.

How to propose to the child the art of coloring mandalas

Coloring mandalas doesn’t have to be a chore. It must not be imposed, because children must see it as a pleasure.

• Find the best time of day to offer him coloring sheets. If you have already colored mandalas at school that day, you better not do it at home as well. That way he won’t get overloaded or bored.
• Allow the child to choose the mandala he likes best. There are designs with animals, stars, tree figures or simple geometries to choose from.
• Gradually, you increase the complexity of the schemes. In this way, you will be able to motivate him much more.

Remember that on the Internet you can find numerous sites from which to download beautiful mandalas ready to color for free.