What Is Aesthetic Development in Children?
Aesthetic development in children is the emergence of the ability to appreciate and critically evaluate art. Art pertains to any form of artistic expression. Aesthetic appreciation is usually a reflection of the senses rather than of artistic ability.
As children develop a sense of aesthetics, they begin to recognize the importance of patterns, arrangement, proportion, use of light and color and even theme as they pertain to art as a form of communication. Children who have parents with a highly developed sense of aesthetics are likely to develop a sense of aesthetics at an early age. This is primarily due to exposure and the importance placed upon the arts within the home.
With aesthetic development comes the ability to interpret an environment. They begin to associate ugly places with things that are bad and beautiful ones with things that are good. They also apply aesthetics to the people found in “ugly” or “beautiful” places. Conversely, ugly places attract ugly people and beautiful places attract beautiful people. They can also apply those terms to themselves based on their own surroundings. Depending on whether the environment is an ugly or beautiful one, this can have a healthy or an unhealthy effect on self-esteem.
