Children’s creativity and “flow state”

Art'tachment is all about strengthening the bond between parents and children using art activities. So why did we choose art as the vehicle for creating connections? Reason #1. Creative play encourages children and adults to become completely engaged in the activity together!

Reading and resources

To learn more about flow state, you can start out by watching Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (renouned psychologist who introduced the notion of ‘flow’) TED talk: Flow, the secret to happiness . For further reading, one of the author’s more recent books provides an accessible overview of research in the area: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

Flow theory is widely used by psychologists to understand people’ engagement in creative activities, including he benefits of creative activities for children. More recently, research has been looking at ‘flow’ in the context of parents and children spending quality time together, and how this contributes to parents’ wellbeing (see this 2021 article on Parental Flow and Positive Emotions in the Journal of happiness studies).