If you know a child who is interested in art, consider helping him or her enter some student art contests.

When I was in elementary school, I took private art lessons from a local artist. I remember entering an art show at the shopping center near my house. An oil painting that my teacher helped me with won second place! But even more surprising to me, a watercolor painting I did completely by myself at home won first place!

I was about eight years old at the time, and I was so excited. So when my children were young, I helped them enter contests too. Sometime they won, and sometimes they did not. But what mattered most is that they tried.

I have found that art contests offer children some great life lessons:

• Every contest has guidelines and a deadline, which gives a child a specific goal to work toward.
• The process of creating the artwork itself builds self-confidence, as the child goes from an “I can’t draw” mindset to one of “I can enter this contest — and I might win!”
• The art children enter should be their best work (it doesn’t matter the skill level), teaching them that no matter what they do, they should do it well.
• If they win, there’s the fun of the reward and learning to be a gracious winner.
• If they don’t win, there’s the practice of dealing with disappointment and being a good sport.
• Win or lose, when your child creates a piece of art and enters it in a contest, she has tried, which is the first step to success.

Ready to start? Click HERE for a list of current online student art contests. Most of them are free to enter or have just a small fee.