DRAW – IMPORTANT!

 

Drawing is important! According to many pediatricians, a healthy child is a child who plays well, speaks well and… draws well. Just like speech or play, drawing is a means of self-discovery, and it is very important for a child to be able to freely express his inner world. For him, drawing is a peculiar way of communicating with the outside world. Through drawing, a child can express his joy or pain, his fears, questions and fantasies, his attitude towards others … There are very few children who do not draw, and such a creative stagnation is most often the result of a mental trauma they have experienced, psychologists say. What is the age – such is the drawing. The development of graphic self-expression in children occurs in parallel with their mental and motor development. In the drawing, the child can also reflect his mood (an angry child enthusiastically draws on a sheet of paper), and its changes can be traced by the width of the lines and the repetition of identical figures. The data below is, of course, approximate:

12-18 months – messy scribbles, zigzags, like a circle without any idea
2 years – vertical lines
2.5 years – horizontal lines, spirals
3 years – circles, suns
3.5 years – the first little man (handles, legs … separately), crosses
4 years – a square, the child is trying to reproduce objects familiar to him
5 years old – full man, for example, with details of clothing, geometric shapes
6 years – characters in action and in the interior
From scrawl to realismSpecialists distinguish 5 main stages:

up to 2 years – doodle. They start from the moment when the child can hold a pencil (about a year). Eyes follow the hand scribbling on the paper. At first, the hand lies on the paper without rising, and only then begins to act more freely.
from 2 to 3 years – unexpected realism. The period starts at 2 years old. A child who initially draws, not wanting to depict something specific, begins to notice similarities with objects. Later, he comes up with a title for his drawing.
from 3 to 4 years – lack of realism. The child tries to depict the shape of the object. Sketch learning stage.
from 4 to 10 years – reasonable realism. The child draws what he knows about the object, not what he sees. He resorts to two techniques: overlay (objects are not placed in perspective, but are drawn relative to one point in space) and transparency (the object and its contents are drawn together, for example, a house with its inhabitants)
from the age of 10 – visual realism. This is a kind of “end” of children’s drawing. The child begins to follow the laws of perspective and realism, which causes some impoverishment of the strokes and palette.
The Expression of Creativity “I used to draw like Raphael, but I had to live my life to learn how to draw like a child…,” Picasso wrote. Is a child who draws an artist in the full sense of the word? Let’s try to find some clues to answer this question:

– the child does not yet have the concept of “aesthetics”. His vision is often influenced by the opinions of other people.
– the child is not a reduced copy of the adult. A child’s drawing can only be assessed from the point of view and psychology of a child, but not from an adult’s point of view.
– when drawing, the child does not strive to create something “beautiful”, he experiments with objects, shapes and colors, he draws instinctively, for pleasure or for self-expression.
Drawing and writing. The evolution of drawing skills is directly related to the development of speech and writing. Drawing is the first step in learning to write:

through the skills it suggests: holding a pencil, controlling one’s gestures,
writing as an integral part of adult life attracts the child. He very early begins to imitate the writing of adults. By the age of 3-4, children often depict a semblance of a text that has magical power for them.
once a child has learned to write some letters (such as his own name), he often begins to mix letters and pictures.
later, when the child goes to school, experts note a decrease in the number of drawings that cannot compete with writing, which is more emphasized.
Drawing as a reflection of personality. Repetitions – drawing scribbles or drawing, the child feels the freedom to express his emotions, the direction of which can be seen by analyzing the repeating objects of his drawing. The hidden message can be unraveled based on the shapes, color and details of the drawing. Tell us about the drawing – psychiatrists do not recommend limiting the evaluation of children’s drawings to exclamations like: “Oh, what a beautiful drawing!”. They believe that the child is primarily interested in discussing the drawing. If he does not talk about it himself, then do not torment him with arguments about the greatness of his creation. However, when he brings you his drawing, ask what this or that part of it means, “go over” briefly through its content. Drawing as a diagnostic method. The drawing is not viewed in isolation. It represents an important diagnostic tool for child development professionals. It completes the picture of the factors influencing the development of the child. Testing mental abilities. Taking into account the presence of certain drawing skills inherent in a particular age, drawing is often used to assess the intellectual “maturity” of the child. He is invited to portray a house or a little man in order to compare his capabilities with the average standards. Checking the mental state. There are a huge number of tests that detect mental disorders in children. So, for example, children with an inhibited reaction either draw repeatedly repeated hollow figures or refuse to draw at all. Drawing and experiences. The drawing can reflect the emotional experiences and fears of the child. Psychotherapists carefully study everything that can lead to relevant conclusions: the use of space, the choice of color, the type and size of strokes, the size of objects, and so on. within the framework of therapeutic treatment, the drawing serves as a bridge for understanding the events experienced by the child. When should you be concerned? Deciphering children’s drawings is so subtle and requires experience that only specialists in this field can give a qualified assessment of what they see. However, there are general points, the presence of which should alert parents:

general recurring painful impression of the pattern
the systematic absence of any body parts or character details
dark or blank eyes
unnecessary strikethroughs
rich black paint
drawings are very small and are located on a very small space of the sheet
the child systematically refuses to draw or tears up his drawings
the same pattern repeats month after month
empty figures
unfinished forms
However, many details of the drawing can frighten parents without presenting a cause for concern: scenes of violence (which do not always reflect real events) or the appearance of genital organs in the drawings of children 3-4 years old (at this age, the child begins to understand the gender differences of people). The anxiety should rather be caused by the obsessive or obsessive self-expression of the child in the drawing.