Do your kids never draw people?

[Brunelofbrio]

I’ve no idea where the best place to post this is so here we are.

I’ve often wondered if all kids draw pictures of ‘mummy, their ‘family’ or ‘themselves’. Both my DCs - now 6 and 8 like drawing but I’ve never seen them draw a person ( certainly not from choice - they do now occasionally have to do it at school). DD draws constantly but mostly ‘abstract’ pictures. DS likes to draw dinosaurs and maps or flags…

Is this normal? (I’m guessing I have other concerns about them being ND) which means I am maybe over thinking it?

Can anyone shed any light on this?

I don't think DC1 (6) draws people very often, they might be a pilot/sailor on top of a plane/ship but 90% of his pictures are military vehicles or starwars ships. Maybe the occasional minecraft zombie too.

My DS age 9 barely draws at all! He just doesn’t like it.

Ours drew faces people looking things yes but faces on animals as well. Fish, birds etc. Do they draw faces?

Mine draw people but usually it’s characters so Pokémon etc and if it happens to be a person e.g. Mario.

They rarely draw pictures of the family but not never.

DS2 drew rainbows and nothing but rainbows from the age of 2 to the age of 5 and we did have concerns but he has since moved on and although they still feature heavily in skies (beside the obligatory sun) they are no longer huge and the only thing on the page.

My son never did, he drew rainbows upon rainbows, he drew trains, but he never drew people. His sister does but they're very different to each other and I think it's just about personality.

The dinosaurs have faces but that’s all.

DD1 (9) draws almost nothing but people. Just single character portraits. I’m not worried.

My nine year old draws nothing. He hates it. My three year old only draws people and the sun.

My daughter did and still does, my son on the other hand drew a picture of a bum today. He is 4.
I don’t think it means anything, just different personalities

People are hard to draw. Exceptionally hard actually. They can ruin a perfectly good picture in no time

It’s a skill in itself - hence the name figure drawing and/ or portraiture. Still life (objects) and landscape are much more forgiving.

So no I wouldn’t worry. I am NT, used to be great at art. Never drew people - even as a child. Famously I was so panicked about having to draw a person for school that my dad taught me how to draw a weird kind of rigid advanced stick man which is still on my reception tea towel to this day; completely out of place against the other kids bubble or basic wobbly stick people.

When ds1 used to love reading Dogman books (or are classified as comic books), he used draw the characters from it.

Ds2 drew a lot of numberblocks. No other people as such. With the exception of school, when they learnt on how to draw self portrait.

My dc loved/loves drawing since small, so I bought him lots of how to draw books.. like how to draw animals/flowers/insects, etc. One of them was how to draw people. So yes, he did draw people.

My DD is 3 has ASD and has been drawing people since she was 2. She doesn't draw much else. Doubt ND has anything to do with it.

DS never drew people until he went to school and had to. Don't think he ever has of his own free choice. When younger he liked to paint but it was just mixing up colours, never of anything. Now he doesn't like drawing or painting at all.

He's 9 now and we're waiting for assessment for ASD. Nothing to do with the above though.

I think it's a TV trope that children draw people. Both DS1 and DS2 were more interested in writing numbers and letters than drawing to start out with. When DS1 did get slightly into drawing then people would be one of the things that featured but he never liked it very much. Ds2 (age 4) is more likely to draw train tracks or a map. They all look like scribbles still. He won't even attempt to draw a person if prompted, we live abroad and he was supposed to do one for his four year assessment. Neither person, tree or house. The doctor's surgery is decorated with beautiful pictures of the three by countless children. Not mine!

I loved drawing as a child and remember being very proud of being able to draw a house with Windows, doors and chimney at his age.

People aren't interesting to everybody. Not when there are dinosaurs, sunsets, animals, aeroplanes, flowers, trees, Pokemon, spaceships, teddy bears, architecture and about a million other things more appealing in shape, form, colour or detail - abstract artists, graphic designers, calligraphers, Islamic artists, photographers, botanical artists, coloured glass artists, sculptors, potters and ceramicists, scientific artists, bog standard representational artists, mixed media artists, carpenters - perfectly neurotypical (and some not), but do not necessarily feel the need to stick a person in their work.

And when you're a kid, you can be very aware that you're actually a bit crap at drawing a picture of your Mum and Dad but your Tyrannosaurus Rex is easily recognisable and gets put on the board at school.

My 4 year old draws pretty much only people. And cats.

I preferred drawing animals, flowers etc, more interesting than people 🤣