One of the most consistent pictures children draw is of their family and themselves, with a pet and their house, too. Interestingly, how children draw themselves also alters depending on who sees it.
According to a study from researchers at the University of Chichester published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, children's expressive drawings of themselves vary depending on their audience and their familiarity with them. This is significant as it's children's drawings that give us an insight into how they feel and what underlying issues and talents might also be present.
As pointed out by the University of Chichester, children's drawings are often used in clinical, forensic, education and therapeutic situations to help gather information and to supplement verbal communication, which is one of the reasons the study was undertaken in the first place.
Researchers worked with 175 children aged eight and nine (85 boys and 90 girls), who were arranged in seven groups. Six had specified varied audience types such as professionals like a policeman and teacher in circumstances where they were both familiar to the child and not at all. One group also had no specified audience.
All children were asked to draw three pictures of themselves, one as a baseline, one happy, and one sad. The key results were as follows:
While the researchers believe that further studies are required, they also suggest that their findings could be used as the basis for future investigations around other professional and personal interactions such as between a doctor and their patient.
"This current study builds on the findings of previous studies carried out by our team. Its findings have implications for the use of children's drawings by professionals as a means to supplement and improve verbal communication," says Dr. Esther Burkitt, Reader in Development Psychology at the University of Chichester.
"Being aware that children may draw emotions differently for different professional groups may help practitioners to better understand what a child feels about the topics being drawn. This awareness could provide the basis of a discussion with the child about why they drew certain information for certain people. Our findings indicate that it matters for which profession children think they are drawing themselves, and whether they are familiar with a member of that profession."
Around the age of six is when the stick figures featured in children's everyday drawings start to have real weight and value. Unlike adults who think on a deeper level about everything, children combine imagination with real life experiences and tend not to sensor their artworks too much. Because kids love to draw and do it often, their art is a method of physiological analysis that's readily available to all.
Here are some more insights into children’s drawings of themselves:
The family portrait
This can include a lot of telling information such as their relationship with their parents, how they feel at home and more. The way a child interprets their family can be identified in the details of their drawing. Researchers have found that children who draw themselves further away from their parents and much smaller in size are more likely to live in a chaotic home environment full of noise, crowding, clutter, and an overall lack of structure.
Interestingly, children that draw every family member with slightly different characteristics also show signs of advanced intelligence with an understanding that every person in their family is a unique individual. It's common for family members to be drawn at different sizes too, usually representing their age or role in the family.
Portraits of themselves
The way that a child draws themselves with pen and paper identifies how they feel about their own self and overall image. Insecurity and inner-conflict can often be identified in the details of a self-drawing. The size a child draws themselves as or shading certain body parts darker are signs a child might have an altered perspective on how they see themselves. Regularly drawing themselves with a sad expression may also mean they're experiencing some form of inner-conflict or external problems.
When it comes to children's drawings of themselves in the early childhood setting here are a few tips:
Thanks to the University of Chichester and ABC Learning Centre of Coral Springs for their insights on children's self-portraits which helped write this article.
When I began my journey as a Waldorf teacher, one thing I learned about was how much we can learn from looking at kid’s drawings.
Young children go through many developmental milestones like learning to sit, walk, talk, etc. They generally progress through these milestones in a predictable order, though each step–and the timing of each step–reflects their individuality, as well.
In the same way, kid’s drawings follow a predictable pattern of development–with individual variations, as well.
This is the second of three parts of a series on kid’s drawings. In the first part, I shared how I set up for drawing in my early childhood classrooms–including materials, set up, and how to interact with the little ones and their drawings.
I created this video to give you an overview of how kid’s drawings develop from 1 or so up through about 6 years of age. It includes me demonstrating the different types of drawings.
I encourage you to try this yourself and see how it feels. If you can, put your whole self into the drawing and really see what it feels like to, for example, connect a circle for the first time.
Here’s a brief overview of how children’s drawings develop. We Waldorf teachers tend to dive deep, but I’m not an expert on this by any means. But I have enjoyed observing children drawing for many years now.
my version of early stages of drawingBefore 3--The child under 3 tends to draw “scribble scrabble,” but it tends to be round in form. It reminds me of the joy that little ones take in running around in circles. They can fly with the colors on the page. The drawings at this stage are just about the joy of movement and of making marks on the page.
Around 3–In Waldorf-world, we talk about the child having their first sense of being a separate being somewhere around the age of 3 to 3 1/2. This is when the child starts referring to themself as “I.”
This change in consciousness is reflected in their drawings by the closing of a circle (as in my middle drawing). Now there is an inside and an outside, and “I” and “other.”
At this point, the child goes from just experiencing the movement of the crayon in their drawing–or from orienting themselves to their own body–to reaching out into the world.
3 1/2 to 5 The child starts to explore the outer world in a new way, to feel their way into the world, to become more social. In their drawings, you often see the first images of the human being. These often consist of a head with limbs dangling off of it. The child’s consciousness grows from the head down. The limbs reach out like feelers into the world, sometimes branching into numerous fingers and toes.
the next phases of drawingGradually, the drawings become more consciously formed. Their figures grow a middle, so to speak.
Often, you’ll see ladders and/or spirals in their drawings. The ladders represent our middle realm–our heart and lungs which give us the rhythms of life through breathing and heartbeat. The spiral represents the breathing and the ladder–which may appear on a person, a tree, or even as a ladder–can be seen as the ribcage which holds the rhythmic system. (The children don’t see it this way, of course–this imagery all comes out of their unconscious). You’ll also start to see square shapes, which represent the same thing–in the form of houses, or just square designs like you see on the right side of my drawing. (The children tend to draw these more carefully than I did and color in completely.)
Around 5 The last of the basic shapes to find its way into the children’s drawings is the triangle. The triangle is a shape that brings a lot of balance and stability. The children have reached the earth in a new way. The triangle shows up in the human form, rooftops, all sorts of places.
triangle drawingsAs the child continues to grow and develop, their drawings become more complex and integrated. I’ve only shown a few simple examples here. But once they have all the shapes, children often draw wonderfully complex and detailed drawings of whatever they think of–from princesses to dragons to trains to garbage trucks and more.
As they approach grade school age, they may become self-conscious about their drawings. The drawings may not look the way they want them to look. This is a natural phase that can be addressed as they enter grade school by teaching some simple skills. But for the young child, it’s best to let them discover on their own.
If you’d like to learn more, here are two books that have a lot of good information. If you know of others, please share them in the comments.
Young Children’s Drawings as a mirror of development by Christhilde Blume
Reading Children’s Drawings by Audrey McAllen
Thanks so much for stopping by. Please let me know if you have any questions.
xoxo
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