Parents looking for effective ways to help a struggling young girl can learn about Music & Art activities at our all-girls private boarding school near Austin, TX.
River View Christian Academy understands that parents want to send a young teen girl to a safe, monitored environment where she receives personal care, and individual activities that help heal emotional, behavioral and mental issues–whether brought on by trauma, foster care, adoption or family genetics.
And while the young teen girl enrolls in our private boarding school for improving her academic/life skills, River View Christian Academy also helps students improve emotional and physical health through Music & Art activities.
What is Music & Art Therapy?
“Music therapy is the prescribed use of music to effect positive changes in the psychological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals with health or educational problems.” (American Music Therapy Association, 2014)
“Art therapy is the purposeful use of visual arts materials and media in intervention, counseling, psychotherapy, and rehabilitation; it is used with individuals of all ages, families, and groups.” (Edwards, 2004; Malchiodi, 2012).
“Each discipline has been applied in psychotherapy and counseling with individuals of all ages, particularly children, for more than 70 years.” (Wheeler, 2014).
Music & Art Therapy Opens Students to Better Choices
“Studies have shown that participating in music and art can alleviate pain, help students manage stress, promote wellness, enhance memory, improve communications, aide physical rehabilitation, and give them a way to express their feelings.”
According to the American Art Therapy Association, Art Therapy gives boys and girls “a way to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being.”
Music Therapy in Child/Adolescence Behavioral Health :
Allows for self-reflection through the use of a variety of music-based activities.
Fosters social and communication skills by making music with others.
Inclusive of trauma-informed and wellness-based models of care.
Helps young people identify how their thoughts and feelings influence their behaviors, choices, and identity development.
Teaches young people how to self-regulate and to help them develop healthy coping skills.
Childhood behavioral health conditions that music therapists work with include, but are not limited to:
• Behavior disorders
• Mood and anxiety disorders
• Attention deficit / Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
• Trauma
• Substance use disorders.
Music & Art Therapy Improves Student’s Behavior
“Music not only provides an emotional benefit to patients, but a physical one as well. Each of us have a parasympathetic system and a sympathetic (fight or flight) system, and music has a way of recalibrating this nervous system so our body’s innate healing mechanisms can kick in. Music also activates the dopaminergic areas on the brain that inspire happiness and reward in the child. Additionally, oxytocin, a hormone associated with bonding and memory, is released and creates an even stronger sense of kinship between the child and their music therapist.”
Clinical Art Therapy can be effective for adolescents who usually see it as a nonthreatening form of treatment. The art that the adolescent produces can help the therapist gain some idea of the youth’s concerns and life circumstances, especially those situations that are too risky to reveal or too personally embarrassing to relate. In addition, Art Therapy can be used to:
Improve sensory-motor function
Cultivate emotional resilience
Foster self-awareness
Promote insight
Enhance social skills
Reduce conflict
Improve cognition
Foster self-esteem.
Music & Art at River View Christian Academy
River View is a private boarding school on 45 beautiful acres located near Austin, Texas. Our purpose is to provide a safe, structured, and supportive setting for our teen girl students 13-17 years old. River View offers teen girls their best opportunity to focus on education, avoid negative distractions and improve their thoughts and behavior for good.
As a non-therapeutic boarding school, River View Christian Academy helps struggling teen girls embrace a healthy outlook on life and teaches them how to make good personal choices. At the same time we connect parents and teen girls with local professional outpatient therapy services for students who struggle with emotional or behavioral issues.
River View also provides 24-hour care and supervision. Young teen girl students are responsible for garden and animal chores on the ranch, in addition to school and homework. Of course, there are fun school activities, as well as the amazing national parks in the area.
If you want to learn more about how Music & Art helps young teen girls open up and heal at our boarding school, please call 1-800-494-2200 now.
Sources:
https://www.thecmf.org/blogs-and-news/creative-healing-music-as-therapy/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071468/
https://www.musictherapy.org/assets/1/7/MT_Child_Adolescent_Behavioral_Health_2019.pdf
