Levels of Self Esteem are Evident in Childrens Art

Through a child's artwork he will not only learn to master the preliminaries of writing, he will also learn to express himself. There is an extremely strong relationship between high self esteem and unbridled creativity. Creativity by its very nature is the act of expressing individuality. It says to the world, “I see things this way, and I am going to give you access to my private perceptions”.

Studies show that the freely creative youngster is high in self confidence, emotional maturity, calmness and independence. Coloring books or paint by numbers or evening a well-meaning parent that instructs him to draw something in particular sets confining limits around a child’s own creativity.

In 1947 Victor Lowenfeld published the book Creative and Mental Growth in which he connected intellectual growth, psychosocial stages of development that fall into predictable age groups, and stages of development in children's drawings.

Scribble Stage
The scribbling stage of childrens artappears at about eighteen months to two years of age. According to most researchers, this scribble is not just aimless motion created at random by the child, but demonstrates an awareness of pattern and growing hand-eye coordination. Somewhere in this process the scribblings begin to be named, forms and shapes occur and by age 3 some detail has begun to be included.

Pre-Schematic Stage
The next stage of drawing typically occurs between four and seven years. In the emergence of this stage, children may draw a human figure with a circle and two dangling lines for legs. Sometimes they include a rectangular shape for bodies, and often little marks inside the circle to represent facial features. This tadpole-like representation is used for both animals and people. Pre-Schematic drawings are often described as symbolic realism because a child is perfectly happy with a simple symbol of an object.

"Schematic" Stage
This stage generally occurs at ages 7-9. Some characteristics that commonly occur in this stage are indicative of what the child is thinking versus what is actually seen by the child, such as "x-ray drawing" where a man on a horse has both legs showing to the front, even though we would really only see one. Details like hands, fingers, and clothing are added with greater and greater frequency. As they progress further, overlapped objects and the farther away something is, the smaller it will be portrayed, regardless of the real relationship in size between the objects. This indicates a growing comprehension of perspective.

"Dawning Realism" Stage
By age of nine or ten, childrens art is becoming increasingly standardized. Children will often bring comic strip figures or commercial logos into their drawings and it is at this point that many children lose interest in drawing, as they become dissatisfied with their "non-realistic" results. Adults often draw at this level or slightly below because this is where they ended their art education.

Because childrens art can be characterized into specific stages of development, it is possible to distinguish when a child is specifically behind age level, or in rare cases such as with certain types of autism, significantly ahead. In the case of learning disabled children whose intelligence may not be fully measured on standardized tests, it is sometimes found that they have significantly advanced creative and visual intelligence in drawing tasks.

At each stage childrens art gives us a wide open window to glimpse their perception of their world. A child's use of color, size, scale, body posture, body depiction, subject matter and much more, all give us insightful information about a child's subconscious metaphors of self expression, sense of well being, and sense of self.

Knowing a child's art stage a parent can often intuitively interpret his sense of wellbeing from looking at these various elements in his art. His art may contain clues to intitiate more conversation about that issue with your child, and build up more confidence in that area.

For example, low self-image is often expressed in drawings where the child draws himself in a developmentally regressed manner, but other objects and people in the composition will be drawn at a more age-appropriate level. Here are some other clues that can signify help is needed to keep his self esteem developing on track.

Does his art portray himself as incredibly small in a classroom but normal sized on a playground?

Does his art show children with no mouths? Ask yourself what is being left unsaid from his perspective, what does he feel he cannot say?

Does his art show small children and a disproportionately large adult? As yourself what about that particular adult is making him feel powerless, helpless or dominated?

Does his art show people without arms? Is there an absence of hugging, or might the child be feeling inadequate or incapable of tasks that require arms?

In the extreme, we have all heard of cases where childrens art is used to help reveal some pyschological violation that the child is not able to express or verbalize, (or sometimes when young as to not be even capable of language dolls are used). An example, is the child who kept drawing a bed outside a house and referring to it as, “This is where it happened”. Later, they found out that this child was sexually abused by a friend of her brother. Or the chld who drew houses without doors, who was kept locked inside the house.

Here you see some drawings from International Children's Day in Iran.

Building Self Esteem through Childrens Art and Creative Activities