Drawing out your inner artist

This weekend, someone was talking about the fact that if you go into a kindergarten classroom and say, “Who can draw?”, every hand goes up. “Who can sing?” Again, everyone raises their hand. It's a classroom full of creative minds.

Go into a 7th grade classroom and ask the same question and hardly any hands go up.

By adulthood, only Picasso will raise his hand when asked, “Who can draw?”, and even he might question whether he should. What if someone says he stinks?

What happens in those years between kindergarten and middle school that stifles our self expression? Somewhere along the way, we learn that if we’re not the best at something, we just shouldn’t do it at all.

Whatever takes hold of us, it’s completely ingrained by adulthood. We would never think of drawing a picture and showing it off unless we believed it worthy of a museum. Sing in public? Not unless we’re Mariah Carey.

At some point, we start doing things for other people more than for ourselves, and we stop doing anything that anyone might criticize.

I thought about this the other day when my daughter spent a half hour forming a turkey out of a hand print, then wrote the words, “Happy Thanksgiving!”, at the top. Obviously, this was a decoration for the holidays. I suggested she hang it on the wall. She said, no, she’d just put it away in her room.

I was confused. Why would you make this picture unless you wanted to show it off? She shrugged and went on to her next project. For her, the joy was in the making of the picture. She’d done it for herself.

How often do we adults ever take time to make something just for the joy of making it? We’d consider that a complete waste of time.

The question is, what can parents do to make sure their children are still the ones who raise their hands in 7th grade when asked if they can draw, dance, sing or write? Maybe it’s as simple as this - we should stop attaching praise and grades to every act of self-expression. We’re so quick to say, “That’s a beautiful picture!”, “Wow, you’re getting really good at drawing!”

Maybe we should just say: “Did you enjoy drawing that turkey? What made you think of it? What do you like about turkeys?”
It also wouldn’t hurt if we set a good example by writing a poem just because we’ve had a spontaneous thought, or doodling a funny image that pops into our heads, or dancing around the living room just to be silly.

For most of us, this isn’t in the schedule, but wouldn’t it be fun to pencil it in? And while we’ve got that pencil in our hands ...