Sometimes I can be a very neurotic parent. Now, this doesn’t happen often. Normally I am not a worrier at all. However, in the last six months I’ve been worrying about my daughter’s talents in the art department. Yes, that’s right – art.
You see, I am not a fabulous artist. I can’t draw a straight line, and all of the animals I draw seem to look like anemic cats. My daughter’s artistic talents seem to run in the same direction. When either of us is asked to draw a picture, we’ll scribble something on a piece of paper, say “here you go,” and race off to do something more interesting.
However, I haven’t been obsessing about drawing for that reason. I have been concerned about my daughter’s total lack of interest in representational drawing: that is, drawing pictures that look like objects or people. She’ll happily paint or scribble away on a piece of paper, but the pictures never look like anything in particular. I was concerned, not because of her art ability, but because I wondered how she’d be able to create letters when it came time to learn how to read and write.
I tried not to push her, but it was hard. And I shouldn’t have worried. Of course, she did it in her own time. Last month she asked me when she could learn how to read and write, and immediately after that she began drawing pictures that looked like people. And she started trying to write. She was just waiting – her interest in making pictures happened all at once.
But what of this scribbling, anyway? Scribbles are a child’s first way of making marks on paper. They are her way of understanding how hand and arm movements work: big motions make big marks, small motions make small marks. Pressing hard makes darker images, while pressing lightly makes lighter images. A child’s scribbles may also mean something to her. While she may not be drawing an image that you can understand, big lines might be waves, or wind, or people standing together.
I’ve tried not to interpret my daughter’s scribbles. Instead, I asked her what she was doing. Maybe she wasn’t making a picture – perhaps it just felt good to move the pencil back and forth in big lines. Or maybe she was making an image, but it wasn’t what I thought. Restraining myself from adding my interpretation was hard, but after years of feeling inadequate about my own art work, the last thing that I wanted to do was project this onto her. So I kept my obsessing to myself and let her scribble. And although I was happy to get a “here is a picture of you, mom!” I must admit to a small feeling of regret, knowing that eventually my daughter will want to draw people and things, and that she’ll lose some of that wild abandon that is scribbling.
How have you worked to develop your child’s small motor skills through household activities?