Child psychologists often use children's drawings for diagnosis. Parents also peer into the creativity of their son or daughter, trying to find an answer to the ever exciting question: "Is the child developing correctly? What worries him? ". There are simple schemes by which the parent can decipher the child's drawing.
However, experts still do not advise parents to get involved in looking for ulterior motives. Although children's drawing is filled with deep meaning for the child himself and reflects his inner world, the choice of lines, colors, shapes does not mean that he has psychological problems. The Atlantic explains why you shouldn't worry about children's scribbles, monsters, or black in drawings.
The child draws only scrawl? Do not worry, it's normal, they also make sense
In the XX century, psychologists were sure: if children draw a person in the form of a tadpole with handles, legs and without a trunk - this is from a misunderstanding of the structure of the human body. Abstract abstracts are painted? Hence, the child does not represent what he wanted to portray. Or just does not know how to draw even simple objects.
Today, more and more psychologists are confident in another: "unrealistic" drawings can not be considered primitive or incorrect. At some point, children really go into realism. But before the school they think differently. For example, in the left corner can draw a house, and above it - the road. This does not mean that they do not understand how the house and the road look in reality. It is more important for them to find a visual balance. And impress the audience, of course.
There is an interrelation with the child's culture. For example, Japanese children draw people with a head in the form of a heart and big eyes. According to experts, it's all because of the manga comics. Professor of Arts Concordia University in Montreal David Pariser tells about the study of Australian anthropologist Charles Mountford (1930 year). The boy, an Australian aboriginal, grew up among Europeans and painted familiar things: houses and trains. And when he returned to his own, to the aborigines, he began to draw symbols accepted in his culture: circles and squares. "Yes, it seems, this simplification of form. But in fact, the child could be inspired by what surrounds him. Or the representation of adults about what a beautiful drawing is. In one culture - this is realism, in the other - an abstraction ", - explains Pariser.
Children's drawings have their own logic
Children's drawings are often compared to abstract painting. In fact, many artists, abstractionists, for example, American Robert Motherwell or German Paul Klee, were inspired by children's drawings. And those parents who are in museums say: "My child can draw the same", it is useful to know that often it is not accidental. Artists try to recreate the freedom of thinking inherent in children through simple forms. "Children are not limited to the scope of visible objects. They can even draw their emotions and sounds, "says Pariser.
A child is not interested in the final result, that is, in the drawing, but in the process: he can live a few minutes in the painted world (and in a few minutes completely forget about it). In addition, this is an important bodily experience.
"Even simple scribbles are filled with meaning. When a child seems to be just driving a pencil across a page, he does it to feel the movement of the hand. He expresses himself through action, and not through the image, "explains Ellen Winner, professor of psychology at Boston College. - A child can draw a truck like this: draw a line through the page, issuing motor sounds. Yes, it does not look like a truck. But if you observe how a child paints and makes sounds, you can see that he tries to express the emotions that a truck is causing him. The process of drawing merges with the game. "
Liana Alvez, a preschool teacher from the Washington school, told about her student, who drew just a straight line. When the child began to explain his picture, it turned out that the line is one of the mattresses from the fairy tale "The Princess on the Pea," which they read in the classroom.
Maureen Ingram, the teacher of the same school, says that her students each time describe differently the same pictures when they are asked. Perhaps because starting to draw, they do not know exactly what will happen in the end. "The adult says:" I will draw a horse "- and draws. Or disappointed if it does not work out. The approach of children is much more reasonable: they just paint and then imagine that it's a horse, "Ingram said.
Children's drawing is not an art for the sake of art, but a process in which the child's inner world is revealed. You can not disclose the meaning of the picture, simply asking the child to tell about it. Some researchers believe that children come up with names for drawings only because they are used to doing this in kindergarten or school. Teacher ask to tell what is painted, and then signs it: "Anya M., 5 years".
In strange and creepy drawings - nothing strange and creepy
"It's pointless to analyze children's drawings and look for hidden motives carefully," says psychologist Ellen Winner. Some parents are very worried when their child draws children and adults of the same size. They feel that he feels helpless and wants to feel as powerful as adults. But the reason here is more likely that the child simply has not learned to delineate the dimensions. And it's easier for him to draw everyone the same. The same with flowers. Psychologists believed that the colors in children's drawings can be used to judge the nature of children. Until one study showed that children simply use colors in the order in which the pencils lie: from left to right or vice versa. It is important to remember that children's drawings have their own logic. And no, the children are not crazy.
Source: ihappymama.ru