Let your child draw!

In the formation of a person, an important part of the processes of personality development is the understanding of images, symbols and forms that are created by our psyche for harmonization, but as soon as a child begins to learn to draw, the biggest mistake immediately occurs. We close the child’s path to self-knowledge and self-understanding. After all, through your drawing it is much easier to understand and know yourself, which a priori becomes impossible when from childhood we are taught to look closely at others.
And so, of course, many will say, but how should a child see things of the correct form and in the correct colors. The concept of right is itself abstract. After all, the sky is not always blue, and the sun is far from yellow. If you look closely, you yourself will see more than 30 shades of different colors in the sky. But, your child may not see this, if from childhood you do not give him the choice to see for himself, what he wants to see himself. And so, as a psychologist with almost 16 years of experience, I can safely say that it is impossible to teach drawing!!! And if you teach professionally, then in art schools and after 8 years.
I will give a number of arguments why teaching a child under 8 to draw is harmful:
1. Color and shape, lines on a sheet of paper are a way for a child to express himself, and as soon as mommy starts commenting that the sun should be round, looking at the child’s square sun. He will immediately find another way of self-expression and these will be whims, screams, etc.
2. In the period of preschool age, when a child goes through a very delicate and important stage of growing up socialization, the drawing will let you understand the possible difficulties and feelings about this. But only if you did not forbid the child to draw what he wants. For example: one mother, whose child is very aggressive towards others, is proud of the fact that she always forbade drawing war and fights. So the child brought everything he could leave on a piece of paper into real social relations with the world.
3. The child has the right to his surrealism, therefore it is absolutely impossible to correct the child’s drawings, try to make them more beautiful or correct. If the child gets used to such a position, then mistakes in adult life will also be corrected by you.
4. Each random drawing of a child is getting rid of negative states, emotions that he could not articulate, energy that has nowhere to throw off, therefore, when parents begin to help with plots, they unconsciously block the psychological channel through which the child can stabilize his psycho-emotional state. You can help the child with the choice of plot when he really asks for it, and then only with a magic phrase – “Draw what you want to draw.”
5. The next important question parents ask. How to draw a child? After all, it’s great to have 64 beautiful, different felt-tip pens that give a very clear and thin and even line. But if we consider drawing as a form of self-help, then only painting with liquid paint, which mixes easily and allows you to experiment with shape and different colors, and even wax crayons give the effect of a real therapeutic space in the drawing.
6. Never criticize or compare a child’s drawings, by accepting the product of your child’s creative activity, you accept the process of his formation as a person. After all, the logic of the child is that if the drawing is bad, then I am bad for my mother. Therefore, do not be afraid to overpraise the child, because each drawing is a part of the manifestation of the soul of your little miracle, its individuality and originality.
7. It is important to note that the process of drawing for children is a way of self-knowledge, and it is very important not to miss such an important psychological and pedagogical tool as drawing. Simple questions to the child – Who is shown in the picture?, What is he like?, What is he doing? In what mood is he?, give parents the opportunity to look into the soul of the child, and see possible problems.
8. The world of fantasy and fairy tales, which is reflected in the picture, opens up new horizons for the child’s own imagination, and this is a very significant area of ​​the child’s life. If parents constantly return the child to harsh reality, this significantly reduces the ability to fantasize in children, the intellectual development of the individual is impoverished, and the possibilities of creative, imaginative thinking are reduced. But think for yourself, before something appears in reality, this something appears in someone’s fantasy. Don’t kill the creator in your child!
9. It is important to say that the child himself begins to be proud of himself when he sees the products of his creativity in the drawings, which is the best means for the psychological prevention of neurotic personality disorders, anxiety, fears and low self-esteem. But, let alone how proud you will be for your child, neither in a fairy tale to say, nor to describe with a pen.
10. Drawing is the very first form of self-expression of mankind and the most ancient means of socialization. Rock paintings convey to us the whole path of development of society and civilization, so let your child go through his development path in the drawings.

Nazarevich Victoria