Children’s drawings

[Pennymixtures]

My son will be 4 in 2 months time. He cannot draw anything other than scribbles. Until now I haven’t even considered it as a problem but I’ve now noticed lots of his little friends who are the same age (at most 2 months difference either younger or older) all drawing at least blobs with faces. Some with arms and legs. And one or two kids drawing even more details. My son is not interested in drawing at all but will occasionally take a pen and scribble over a page of a colouring book we keep on the kitchen table.

I’ll admit I’ve put no effort into showing him otherwise as I’ve just gone with what he’s interested in.

His strengths definitely lie elsewhere. He is exceptionally fluent with language and can talk in a manner that the majority of his friends can’t. He has a great turn of phrase and very large vocabulary. He is very well behaved and easy to talk to and reason with. He is very skilled on his bike, riding pedals before 3 and no fear going down ramps at the local skate park. He is very good at building with Lego and will create things by himself with no input from us. He has a great memory for facts and can explain all sorts of things he’s learnt from books or things we chat about.

So, is this just a case of he’ll come to it in his own time/ all kids have different interests and strengths? Or is it not so much a concern really, but something I should be making more of an effort with with him?

What age did your children get interested in drawing?

When kids develop the fine motor skills that allows drawing can be varied. I believe it's usually between 3 and 5.
We noticed a huge improvement in my daughters drawing between 4 and 4 and 3 months.
Have they had the school readiness assessment yet? My daughter reached fine motor skills milestones before gross motor skills. Most kids will have things they pick up quickly and some that take a bit more time. My daughter is small and I find she reaches gross motor skills with her dress size rather than her age. Although she's nearly 5 she's only just gone into 3-4 clothes and since doing so we have seen a huge jump in her ability with swimming and riding her bike.

We are in Scotland so he won’t go to school until next August, or even the following August.

His fine motor skills are great when it comes to Lego and things like that. He was the kind of baby who could unscrew everything from a young age. He has zero interest in mark making and I haven’t done anything about that. He’s off for the summer but when he’s at nursery he will participate in painting at so on but not often and he’s not drawn to it like other activities.

He might just not be interested in drawing. My friends son at 4 had to be bribed to sit at a table to draw he made the minimum number of lines on the page then ran off!
My daughters school readiness assessment followed the ages and stages assessment for 45+ months if you wanted to check where he currently is you could have a search for that
From recollection it did have drawing a body in fine motor skills but literally circle for head, and a few straight lines for arms and legs nothing super recognisable as a person but also drawing straight triangles and circles and using scissors..

I didn’t think of scissors. He can hold them correctly and enjoys cutting but he just snips up bits of paper any way he pleases and I leave him to it.

I know in my heart it’s nothing to worry about and he’ll do his own thing in his own time, but it just got me thinking when I saw some of the drawings his friends can produce. He is definitely not interested in drawing at all. He doesn’t hold a pen or pencil correctly but, again, I haven’t done anything about that.

To be honest he tires me out so much with his constant chatter and energy that I take the easy road and just hang out with him doing fun things we enjoy. I don’t push anything that he doesn’t show obvious interest in (except for more urgent life skills/independence and hygiene like teaching him how to dress himself, brush teeth, washing himself etc)

That sounds exactly like my daughter at 4 with scissors!
Within 3 months at school she was cutting around intricate pictures. We are in England and she's August born and started school at 4 and a few weeks. I'd say she didn't particularly stand out as above or behind the kids in her class that were up to 12 months older than her.
Sounds like he's doing well I'd just enjoy your time with him and foster any interest and go from there.
As he starts to get closer to the start of school and he's still not super interested maybe do some work with him then as good use of pens and crayons will help then but I'd relax in the meantime

Thank you for the reassurance. I’ve muddled my dates in the OP. He’ll be 4 at the end of September so still nearly 3 months until his birthday. He will either go to school just before turning 5 or just before turning 6 (we would decide that nearer the time and I’ve no feeling either way about it at the moment) so quite different from England but I guess it evens out the same.

To be honest I’m not the kind of parent who is good at organising activities to focus on different skills and then sit and encourage him through them. We just do what’s fun and what we feel like so I think I’ll take your advice and relax about it for the time being. It’s funny, this is the first thing I’ve even come close to worrying about with his development. Not sure why it’s played on my mind so much.

My son had very little interest in drawing.
But loved reading and writing. At just 3 he signed his name on a birthday card - I had no idea that was advanced.
By 4 he was reading and at 5 reading very fluently - he was reading the instructions for parents that came with his school reading book.
His sister on the other hand loved art and craft stuff but was much more linear with learning to read.