When we think of introducing art to children, we often imagine crayons, finger paints, or dancing to music. But one of the most powerful (and often overlooked) forms of early artistic expression is something our children begin exploring from the moment they first scribble on paper: writing.
Before alphabets, before books, even before formal schooling, humans carved stories into stone, painted symbols on cave walls, and passed down knowledge through marks and symbols. Writing wasn’t just about communication, it was about creation. And it remains one of the oldest, most soulful forms of art we can pass on to our children.
Handwriting is a form of expression and it can reveal emotions, conflicts, and subconscious elements of an individual’s psyche. The way someone forms letters, the overall style or the pressure applied can convey aspects of the writer’s internal world.
Writing Is Where Art and Thought Meet
Long before modern languages, early humans used symbols and pictures to express ideas, feelings, and experiences. These weren’t simply tools for communication—they were acts of imagination. The very first “writers” were also artists, creating visual expressions of life, emotion, and belief.
As children today learn to form letters and string together words, they’re not just learning literacy, they’re stepping into the shoes of our earliest artists. Every sentence, every story, every silly rhyme is a little masterpiece in progress.
Why This Matters for Parents and Educators
As parents and educators, we often focus on writing for its academic value; spelling, grammar, comprehension. But what if we began to treat it as creative expression too?
- When a child writes a story about a dragon who loves vegetables, they’re not just practicing sentence structure, they’re exploring identity, problem-solving, and storytelling.
- When a student journals about their feelings, they're not just writing—they're healing, processing, and expressing. Think about a time when you were writing a letter of complaint (by hand) and you were pressing down your pen with more pressure than usual. Your handwriting was probably messier than usual, while your frustration was translated into you writing. In contrast, think about when you're writing inside a greeting card and you're conscious of making sure that your handwriting is beautiful and neat.
- When a child makes their own comic strip or illustrates a poem, they’re merging the visual and written arts in the same way ancient people once did on cave walls and clay tablets.
By nurturing a love of writing early on, we help our children build a lifelong relationship with creativity.
For Creatives: Reclaiming Writing as Art
To the creatives reading this—designers, illustrators, workshop leaders, therapists—writing is your ally. Whether you use it to tell your story, teach a class, or design a product, writing is more than a tool. It’s a bridge between thought and expression, just like visual or performance art.
Writing gives you a voice. It gives your ideas structure and life. And when we guide others, especially children, through writing as a process of discovery and self-expression, we empower them in the most profound way.
Let’s Rethink How We See Writing
In a world of emojis and rapid-fire messages, writing can sometimes feel purely functional. But it’s not. Writing is storytelling, connection, legacy.
So the next time your child writes a birthday card, a journal entry, or even a wild story about space-traveling cats...pause. Celebrate it. Encourage it. Because they’re not just writing words…
They’re making art.