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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

My nearly four-year old ds can't draw a face

15 replies

furrycat · 18/09/2008 11:22

Have been stressing cos read somewhere this is a major milestone. He likes drawing other things though...should I worry?

OP posts:

PlebGoober · 18/09/2008 11:25

Not at all. It is fine. Leave him to do the things he wants to do.

lljkk · 18/09/2008 11:26

Crikey -- he can draw at all? You really shouldn't worry, girls draw more and better earlier than lads, DS1 didn't draw anything until he was very nearly 5. DS1 (age 8) does amazingly detailed and accurate drawings of anything but faces/people, now (he refuses to do people).

DS2 is 4.3yo and can't draw a thing.

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 18/09/2008 11:27

The only thing my DS can draw is a circle and a witch. No idea why the witch.

Mercy · 18/09/2008 11:27

Agree, don't worry about it.

My ds has just started Reception and was the only child who couldn't write his name - but he is much better at counting than the others!

PrimulaVeris · 18/09/2008 11:31

No worries. Mine couldn't at that age either - far too busy running around.

He's now one of the best in art at school and his drawings can have amazing detail.

jollydo · 18/09/2008 12:27

My ds1 can only draw lines and circles, he's 4.5. His girl cousin, the same age, can draw very detailed people!! Glad to know he's not alone.

gladders · 18/09/2008 14:32

my ds (also nearly 4) was only spurred into drawing when he saw that all the little girls could do it.... he's nothing if not competitive!!

think probably more a case of won't rather than can't?

jollydo · 19/09/2008 11:54

Yes Gladders, I think not being interested much in drawing is part of it for my ds. He'll do it for a little while but just isn't interested enough at the moment to keep going. However, I think this may be tied in with the fact that he finds it hard. Even drawing a line joining 2 pictures, I can see he has to really concentrate. Sometimes he'll ask me to show him how to draw something, but when he puts the pencil on the paper he doesn't seem to be able to work out what direction it should go in.
I think there is some truth in the idea that boys' brains often develop in that area later than girls.

snowleopard · 19/09/2008 11:57

My DS at 3.3 loves drawing, but only ever random-looking scribbles and dots. He seems normal and bright, very chatty, but just doesn't seem to make the connection that you can draw pictures of things - while his friend who's a girl of the same age is drawing loads of stuff now. I've just assumed he'll get round to it eventually!

MamaG · 19/09/2008 11:58

DS is the same. He was 4 in March. He hates drawing, jigsaws etc - basically anything where he has to sit still. Iknow he'll settle down eventually and "catch up" with others his age.

don't worry

OrmIrian · 19/09/2008 12:05

Hmmm... my nearly 6yr old struggles to draw a recognisable face. Unless the faces he's drawing are actually portraits of alien visitors.

RubberDuck · 19/09/2008 12:24

Ds1 was the same - his first stick figure was with pavement chalk the summer before he started school (so over 4).

His handwriting at school was also ATROCIOUS. In Y1 his teacher talked about it with us and said that in a great many boys, the bones in their hands don't fuse properly (v young children have more bones than adults in their hands) until around the age of 6 (i.e. older than girls) and as a result they don't have the strength or fine motor coordination in their hands.

They did a lot of write dance stuff with him (big movements to music gradually getting smaller so he could form letters) and eventually it clicked. He's still not the neatest writer in the world, aged 7, but not bad and he LOVES drawing and colouring.

His brother, complete opposite, was drawing stick figures and fairly complex pictures at about the age of 3. Go figure!

BlueberryPancake · 19/09/2008 22:09

I draw a circle and ask my son to draw the eyes, ears, hair, etc obviously it's all over the place as he is only 2.8 but that's pretty much the only thing he wants to draw.

LeonieD · 20/09/2008 09:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Grumpalina · 20/09/2008 09:22

OMG I was just like this!!! Don't worry. DS2 turned 4 in July and just started reception. I was worrying becuase he didn't seem to 'draw' anything recognizable and his colouring in was poor. This was made worse by the fact I had DS1 to compare him with who drew recognizable people at 3. However I think DS1 (now 8) is particularly good at art so it wasn't a fair comparison anyway.

Anyway since he's started at reception (2 and half weeks ago now!!) he's come on in leaps and bounds. In fact he drew a recognizable Eva (from Wall-E) the other day which hangs proudly on my wall at work.

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