The development of children 2-3 years old in doodles

Posted by Artistic Artist Dao Thi Dan Phuong - Unit of Regenerative Medicine Clinic and Educational Psychology - Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy at Vinmec Times City International General Hospital.

For adults, the drawings of children 2-3 years old are simply carefree, meaningless scribbles of children when playing with crayons. But in fact, behind those doodles and meaningless pictures is the development of children's thinking, skills and creativity.

Although it is also a "children's painting", depending on each stage of development such as infancy, kindergarten, teenager, young adult... the painting will be different. If you compare the paintings of children and the paintings of adults, you can imagine that they have a clear difference, like the difference between the paintings of modern people and those of prehistoric people tens of thousands of years ago. .
Despite such a big difference, many adults today tend to overlook and ignore it to focus on teaching and forcing children to draw in their own style. Parents often assume that art education is teaching children how to draw adults, which is a misconception. In essence, art education is skillful guidance to discover and nurture children's drawing talent, in accordance with each development stage. At the same time, help children develop skills such as fine motor, language, problem-solving ability, visual learning ability, encourage children to invent, create...
What adults want to teach for children are ordinary rough sketches, such as drawings of fish, rabbits, hearts, sun, house.... In fact, any child is educated in the same class. , or a place all have the same drawings, drawings, and products. Among the children whose teachers and parents draw a model for the painting style, there are many children, even those who are 3 years old, still nag: "Draw for me, draw for me". If the parents do not draw, the child will be angry or angry. But when drawn by parents and teachers, children will have a better mood and stop crying. Simply because the baby is interested because someone paints for him.
In short, because children squint or because they see their children happy when they draw, parents often compromise. But does that really bring joy to the child, or furthermore, is beneficial for the development of 2-3 year old children.
To explain the pampering of their children, parents often use the excuse that their children are demanding, because they see that they like them, because this is something that we can do for them... Whatever the reason. Among the things adults do for children, there are also do's and don'ts.

In the process of children's physical and mental development, the wisdom in how to educate children of fathers and mothers is shown through the ability to judge, to be able to clearly distinguish what is the main reason. worthy of young children. The principle of clear separation between things that "can be done, can be compromised" and things that "should not be done, should not be met with children" is the foundation for child rearing, and at the same time the obligation of parents. as a member of society.
Have you ever wondered how parents teach children how to draw adults lead to results? For children as young as 2-3 years old, when adults teach them how to draw pictures, they will suddenly appear excited and interested. But when you ask your child to draw a picture of his or her own, they simply follow the instructions.
Painting was originally a means to express children's thoughts and feelings, but now it is restricted by the way adults draw. Accordingly, adults unintentionally impose a "must be like this" painting style. As a result, children can no longer freely express their own thoughts. Not stopping there, the emotional development as well as the creative ability of a person through painting will also be hindered.
We define painting simply as “painting activity” or “artistic activity”, but otherwise we can also call this “expressive activity” or “creative activity”. Painting is an activity that depends greatly on human creativity. The skills cultivated through painting are the ability to express and express creativity. Therefore, the fact that a 2-3 year old child draws scribbles that adults look at and analyze forever and can't figure out an image, this is also an obvious part of the development stage. develop children's expressive ability, fine motor ability, love and creativity. Encourage and encourage them positively, let them go in the right order in the development process, be free to create in their own world.

Reference source: "Reading youth through drawings" by Akiyoshi Torii