Get creative with portraits
The Princess of Wales and The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood are encouraging families and friends to get creative.
When children engage in enjoyable activities with friends, family, and other caring adults, it not only allows them to have fun in the moment but can also help them to develop their social and emotional skills for the future.
Creative activities like arts and crafts can be great ways to spend time together, have fun, and nurture your relationships.
They also encourage children to focus their thoughts, involve communicating with others, and help them to know themselves. While you might create a memorable keepsake, the real value lies in the joy and connection shared throughout the experience.
One idea is to sit down together and create portraits of one another.
You can enjoy this activity in any way that is fun for you and the child you are with; you might want to draw, paint, or make a model out of things around the house to make your portrait. The magic of this activity comes in really looking at and focusing on each other, connecting, and having fun together.
We encourage grown-ups to draw with children, so that you are both creating portraits of each other. Use the shared experience to appreciate the strengths in each other’s artwork and perhaps have a giggle where things don’t turn out as planned!
We’d love to see examples of your portraits, so please do share what you are comfortable with on Instagram or X and tag our account, @earlychildhood – and most importantly, let us know how you found the experience!
These activities can be adapted for babies and young toddlers too. Many of us have photos of people we care about around our homes and on our phones. Babies and toddlers often love looking at these pictures and talking about the people in them. You could show them photos of themselves with a friend or family member and talk about what they were doing together.
