How to encourage children to draw

The other day I found myself questioning if there was some parenting code for drawing with children that I’d missed out on. Three-year-old Big Girl was at home from nursery with a cold and after watching Inside Out together we started drawing the different characters.

I’m not in any way an expert in drawing, but she suddenly decided she liked my Disgust better than her Joy. I was so excited about her blue-haired Joy, but to my frustration she suddenly binned hers and only wanted mine.

I got seriously worried. I felt I’d damaged her confidence by doing a fun activity together, and it got me thinking that I should have given her guidance instead of joining in.

To rectify the issue, I took her around the house to show her art she’d done as a little and how her drawing skills had developed in the last years. I also brought out a prize she’d won in an art competition, and showed her illustrations of how great artists could simply paint a dot to represent a feeling or take something everyday like a shoe and make it into art.

There’s probably a long list of rights and wrongs, but at least my little one did get back to the drawing table.

And I couldn’t have been prouder when she came and showed me what she’d made after I’d waited out this round. She’d done her very own shoe and cut it out with a heel. Phew. Damage control worked.

Tags: 3 years, Art, Arts and crafts, Being a mum, Drawing, How to, Parenting, Preschooler