Almost 4 year old's painting

[sowaddayasay]

My little boy will be 4 soon and is very dexterous when manipulating toys and generally physically confident but his paintings are still scribbles and expressive swirls rather than anything that resembles characters. So, no faces or humans or anything that's meant to portray reality. He also has avoided colouring in and yesterday was in tears when he had to do some for nursery.

Would you worry?

Thanks in advance

There are many, many toys and activities out there which are very prescriptive in the same way as colouring.

Threading games, tapestry, craft kits, spirograph, origami, Lego kits, Airfix models..... The list is endless and children love lots of them.

The problem is that these types of activity in which the outcome is set by the designer have limited value in terms of education. Children learn through exploration and experimentation not instruction and prescription.

All of these activities can, however, be great entertainment which has it's place too.

See I really can't get worked up about it, but then I freely admit that art is not my thing.

If you don't work in art or early years, then there's not much need toget worked up about it, but if you were a nursery where creative development was on the curriculum sending colouring in home for 3 year olds as homework seems an odd decision.

I would keep an eye on it and ask the class teacher to do the same when he starts school. My DS was much the same at that age and I kept waiting for him to "get it" He is now a bright six-year-old who is being assessed for a writing disorder and still paints and draws like a three-year-old. The school picked up on it really quickly which helped. It doesn't much matter whether a child can paint or draw well but I think I always knew that my DS was facing a bigger problem. Trust your instincts on this one.

My son is the same at 3.5 and he often comes hom from preschool with A4 sheets mostly coloured in black with 'a spider' written across the top by his key worker. He gets bored with colouring in and if we do free drawing at home his pictures tend to be round and round and round and are always racing tracks (vroom vroom).

He's advanced in other areas though so I'm trying not to worry about it - but he won't be winning any drawing prizes at the village show this year!

thanks again everybody...will talk to his teacher when he starts in September, another good idea girnythecat.

Southlundon I love the "spider" title, do you think it's the key worker's attempts to give the pictures context? :o
My boy is also in the racing tracks school of drawing, sometimes I fear I gave birth to a mini petrol head.

today I bought dinosaur stamps and alphabet sponges for him to have some fun..and plasticine with cutters...can't wait to pick him up from nursery :)

Ooh ooh, potato printing and tree bark rubbings!

«tries to calm down»

Decorating a hard boiled egg at easter
Making home made cards for birthdays and christmas
Making his own invites for birthday parties

grinythecat if you dont mind me asking, is there a specific disorder they are investigating with your DS and who have you been refered to? My dn is experiencing the same and same age, but the school seem reluctant to investigate further.

We had a brilliant time tonight, we all played with his dinosaur stamps, mixed colours, made a mess and my boy covered himself in paint. We had so much fun and no sign of stress...printmaking (especially of little hands smeared in paint) is the best!

fantastic
tethersend I agree with every word

Great stuff :)

thanks, this has been a truly helpful discussion!

My DD is 7 and HATED colouring in at the age of four....very odd efforts when it came to faces etc

She's now a brilliant little artist and won a competition last week for her picture of a fish....it was a national competition too!

Oh and I agree with all th suggestions for painting with different things...i laos used to get D those big stretched canvasses and let her paint ad stick stuff on them...and whatever she did I praised highly!

Sorry, coming late to the party here and I might have missed something, but has your Ds had a preschool eye test yet? My DD1 was never much into art but it turns out she is longsighted (like me) and so struggles to focus close up. When she got her glasses when she was 4yo it made a really immediate difference.

There is loads of good advice on this thread & we hadn't worried about dd but it was a very marked change when she got her glasses, so I thought I'd mention it

I guess the thing that worried me most about your statement OP is the phrase "He also has avoided colouring in and yesterday was in tears when he had to do some for nursery."

The curriculum is supposed to be about expressive arts & design- creativity by it's nature is expressing your own ideas through a variety of mediums. It should NEVER be something a child HAS to do- especially at nursery.

I'm sure Jackson Pollock's parents didn't recognise his ability to express himself straight away. The point is- art is about self expression if you child feels like scribbling: let him. As long as his fine motor skills are developing, his communication is where you would expect it to be it really isn't a problem and certainly not something you can change by trying to teach him to draw or making him draw.

teacherslikeapples, I asked a question because I hated to see him stressed over something that many other children his age seem to enjoy. If I thought it made any sense to force him to draw then I probably wouldn't have asked the question in the first place I think.

I vividly remember how easy and fun it was when I was little and I guess I har mostly noticed children enjoying drawing in a representational way rather than it upsetting them. I guess I have seen the ones who enjoy it because the ones that don't like it are too busy playing with different things.

My question was not in order to get agreement over me making him do anything, more whether that refusal and stress it would be a worrying sign of something else. And some posters have pointed out that their children still find it hard to write when older than my boy and maybe I should talk to his teacher.

That was very helpful, as also was the encouragement to just have fun and produce more mess rather than fine drawings.

I loved homework as a small child, still remember how I enjoyed tracing the letters of the alphabet and also the first time I realised how to draw a person. Also I really liked receiving instruction, having an adult there to show me how to do things, which I guess my little boy is either not into or too young for. But I have zero intention to make him do anything.

My issue was more with the fact that he attends a nursery that would expect him to have to draw something. It made me wonder whether he has any anxiety towards making marks on paper. Some children get really nervous when they think adults are expecting them to make their picture look a certain way & because they don;t know how to do that yet they get anxious and scribble.

That's a good very point teachers, I didn't mean to sound so defensive, I think maybe too many learning goals take the fun away from being a little child...I guess I was shaken by him crying, as he's a confident little boy that likes to be involved in most activities. Maybe you're on to something and the nursery did try to make a picture in a certain way...I certainly won't be insisting that he does things a certain way.