Cakap Kids Academy Berbagi: Cultivating Emotional Intelligence Through Art Therapy

“Why is this therapy important? Because all children need to be equipped with strong emotional regulation skills as a foundation for facing stress, maintaining healthy relationships, and overcoming life challenges as they grow older,” said Amelia Putri, Depth Psychotherapist from Atman Transpersonal Center, who facilitated the session.

Amelia provides easily digestible materials and therapies for children, including verbalizing emotions — the ability to name the emotions they experience — through games like “emotion masks,” the ability to “voice” their feelings and thoughts through drawings, and communication and social skills by sharing their creations with their peers. Aside from plants and pets (cats), most  children from the orphanage drew houses as the object of their expression.

“I noticed several children drawing houses, maybe around ten children. There must be a factor that makes drawing houses their favorite ,” said Hasan, a Representative from the Uswatun Hasanah Foundation. He added that the children in their foundation have been living in the same complex of buildings, from school to where they sleep. “From the speaker (Amelia), I was informed that some of them (children from the orphanage) long to live in a home with a family like other children normally do,” Hasan added, representing the feelings of the children from the orphanage expressed through their drawings.