What do youngsters’s drawings inform us about life at residence?
11 min read
Youngsters’s drawings can operate as an interesting window into how youngsters understand and symbolize their world. They’re additionally useful instruments for therapists, as a result of youngsters generally discover it simpler to speak with imagery fairly than phrases. However are youngsters’s drawings — by themselves — proof that one thing is mistaken? Analysis strongly signifies in any other case.
Think about a stack of youngsters’s art work, footage produced by 6-year-olds who’ve been requested to “make a household drawing.” No additional directions given.
As you kind by means of them, you see that many youngsters created colourful, detailed, cheerful pictures. Members of the family are depicted as smiling or nice, and they’re positioned entrance and heart – not crowded on the fringe of the web page. Our bodies are drawn in tough proportion, and totally different individuals are given particular person traits. Simply trying these drawings provides you the impression of belonging, delight, or happiness.
However a couple of youngsters created sketches that appear emotionally bleak, disturbed, distant, or lonely. For example, in some instances, the drawings are colorless, despite the fact that the kids had entry to coloured crayons or pens. The figures look sad, or drawn in surprisingly exaggerated methods. Members of the family could also be separated by limitations, or in any other case depicted as far aside from one another. Sure individuals within the household could also be totally lacking from the picture.
In different instances, the artist takes care to symbolize everybody within the household, however particular person relations are scrunched collectively within the nook of the body — stashed away on the periphery, fairly than showcased as the first topics of the drawing.
And in among the pictures, you would possibly see a scarcity of completeness and individuality. Human figures are lacking arms or arms or faces, in addition to any options which may differentiate one member of the family from one other.
What do these household portraits inform us in regards to the youngsters who drew them? What do they inform us about youngsters’s home lives, their intimate relationships? May a somber or disturbed-looking household drawing be a warning signal – an indicator {that a} baby is experiencing stress or issue at residence?
Deciphering youngsters’s household drawings
Throughout a wide range of research – performed in a number of cultures – researchers have discovered that household drawings can certainly inform us one thing. The photographs are likely to correlate with youngsters’s perceptions of household life. However earlier than we get fearful about oddities in our kids’s art work, we’d like to bear in mind:
Drawings aren’t proof that one thing is mistaken. They are often hints or clues that one thing would possibly be mistaken.
In any case, youngsters differ significantly of their drawing expertise.
If a baby attracts human figures with out distinguishing options, or crowds everybody collectively in a small portion of the accessible area, does this imply the kid is confused or sad about one thing? Or does it merely imply the kid hasn’t but mastered the conventions of representational drawing?
Then there’s the position of tradition.
In Western societies, psychologists count on 6-year-olds to depict human faces with eyes and mouths. If household life is safe and completely satisfied, they count on to see relations smiling, with mother and father standing alongside their youngsters. But among the many Nso farmers of Cameroon, it’s widespread for teenagers to attract individuals with out smiles, and even mouths. And it isn’t uncommon for them to attract themselves standing alongside somebody different than a father or mother.
Why do Nso youngsters produce such drawings? It’s not as a result of youngsters are insecure or maladjusted. Quite the opposite, Nso youngsters are depicting household life in ways in which make sense for his or her tradition. From an early age, Nso youngsters are taught to maintain their feelings underneath management, and preserve impartial facial features. So on this tradition, depicting relations with smiling faces can be odd or irregular.
As well as, Nso youngsters develop up with a number of caretakers, together with mother and father and non-relatives. In impact, their idea of household is extra inclusive, and their pictures mirror this. They’re extra seemingly than Western youngsters to attract themselves standing close to a non-parent, as a result of they’re extra more likely to view non-parents as necessary attachment figures (Gernhardt et al 2013).
So when anybody tries to research the that means of a household drawing, they should consider developmental expertise, cultural norms, and childrearing practices. And it’s additionally essential to acknowledge all the opposite stuff that may affect a baby’s graphical depictions, corresponding to imagery within the common media, and private quirks or passing moods. To paraphrase Freud, generally a drawing is only a drawing. Psychologists shouldn’t – and don’t – leap to conclusions primarily based on youngsters’s drawings. To actually perceive what’s happening in a baby’s world, they extra items of knowledge.
Nonetheless, as I’ve stated, there may be proof that household drawings may be reflective of a kid’s real-world experiences. What is that this proof like? Right here’s an instance.
In a long-term examine performed by researchers on the College of North Carolina, Bharathi Zvara and her colleagues adopted greater than 900 youngsters from infancy by means of the primary grade. Investigators visited the kids eight occasions over time, observing youngsters of their houses, as they interacted with their moms. When youngsters have been challenged to resolve tough duties, researchers recorded how moms behaved. Did moms preserve optimistic feelings with their youngsters? Did they present the sensitivity to maintain youngsters engaged and stimulated, with out making an attempt to take over or management the duty? Or have been the moms intrusive, bossy, damaging, or harsh?
As well as, Zvara’s group rated the general household atmosphere for one thing referred to as “family chaos,” a measure that takes under consideration how a lot disorganization and instability there may be. If a house featured numerous noise, muddle and crowding, and comparatively little construction, it was rated as extremely disorganized. If a household skilled frequent strikes, modifications in household composition, and inconsistent routines, it was scored as being very unstable.
The endpoint of the examine was reached when youngsters have been 6 years previous, and researchers requested them to attract footage of their households. The group analyzed the drawings, in search of these indicators.
- A scarcity of household delight. Had been the faces lacking smiles, or different markers of pleasantness? Did youngsters fail to make use of vibrant colours? Had been relations introduced in a method that made them appear unimportant, or disconnected from one another?
- Vulnerability. Did the kids’s self-depictions look threatened indirectly, due to measurement distortions, the position of figures, or surprisingly exaggerated physique components?
- Emotional distance. Had been relations depicted with damaging feelings? Had been moms and youngsters separated from one another?
- Stress/anger. Did the drawing itself present indicators of being produced in anger? Had been the figures drawn carelessly, or with out shade or element?
- International pathology. What there an total impression of negativity, primarily based on elements like group, particulars, temper, background?
Outcomes: Youngsters’s drawings are linked – considerably – with household functioning
Researchers didn’t discover {that a} baby’s depiction of household life was a one-on-one match with hassle at residence. Quite, they found modest, however statistically important, hyperlinks between youngsters’s drawings and several other key environmental elements.
- Children tended to provide happier, extra supportive-looking household pictures if that they had heat, delicate, child-centered, stimulating caregivers.
- Children’ pictures have been extra more likely to depict negativity, alienation, and emotional distancing when their caregivers have been harsh, controlling, or disapproving.
- Imagery additionally trusted the disorganization ranges of the family. The extra noise, muddle, and crowding – and the much less construction – the better the possibility {that a} baby’s household drawing would show the damaging traits listed above.
It’s simple to see how the standard of parenting would possibly have an effect on a baby’s depiction of household relationships. However why ought to family chaos – particularly disorganization — matter?
The reply appears to be that chaos can frazzle nerves, erode endurance, fritter consideration, and make it tough for fogeys and children to speak in optimistic, delicate methods. In truth, when the researchers managed for maternal parenting behaviors, the hyperlink between family chaos and youngsters’s drawings vanished.
So what we’re left with is proof that youngsters’s household drawings are correlated with the kind of parenting they obtain, however the correlation is small. If a baby creates a household drawing that appears missing in heat and a spotlight to element – if the drawing appears a bit odd, or haphazard, or emotionally damaging – this most definitively doesn’t imply that the household is dysfunctional, or that the mother and father are missing in heat, sensitivity, and responsiveness. As a substitute, it’s a small, however probably useful, clue. Children who produce these drawings are considerably extra more likely to expertise damaging or harsh parenting.
What about different outcomes? Do youngsters’s drawings mirror attachment safety? Traumatic experiences? Severe emotional or conduct issues?
Researchers report that the household drawing check (usually referred to as the “Household Drawing Paradigm”, or FDP) has been “more and more used to evaluate attachment” in youngsters by scientific and developmental professionals (Tempo, Muzi, and Vizzino 2022). It’s considered as a useful instrument when verbal communication with youngsters is tough. It additionally has the benefit of minimizing misery, relative to the so-called “gold commonplace” of attachment assessments – the Unusual Scenario Paradigm. (As I clarify elsewhere, the Unusual Scenario Paradigm requires youngsters to spend time with a stranger whereas their mother and father are absent, and this may be hectic for members.)
However these traits don’t be sure that the household drawing check is an correct indicator of attachment safety, and actually the restricted proof means that it isn’t very correct in any respect. For instance, in a examine testing 41 youngsters (ages 5 to eight), researchers discovered that FDP outcomes weren’t aligned with the outcomes of a Unusual Scenario check (Tempo et al 2020). Thus, as Cecilia Serena Pace and her colleagues notice, we are able to’t assume that the Household Drawing check is as “trustable” as different, well-established procedures for assessing attachment (Tempo, Muzi, and Vizzino 2022).
Equally, we are able to’t assume that youngsters’s drawings are — by themselves — proof of traumatic experiences or mistreatment. When Brian Allen and Chriscelyn Tussey reviewed the revealed literature on this topic in 2012, they concluded the analysis was too inconsistent, and compromised by “severe methodological flaws.”
As of 2023, I’ve regarded for related research revealed after 2012, and I’ve discovered research indicating self-portraits of victimized people usually observe sure patterns, and these patterns can be utilized to assist determine individuals who have suffered. However the correlation isn’t good, and drawings alone shouldn’t be taken as proof.
And in the case of detecting severe emotional or conduct issues, household drawings are considerably helpful, however removed from diagnostic.
For example, researchers have discovered correlations between a baby’s household representations and “callous unemotional traits,” that are characterised by low empathy, low concern for others, and shallow feelings. Children who recognized with these traits usually tend to create aberrant household drawings for his or her age. Furthermore, when youngsters’s signs enhance, their household drawings have modified for the higher (Kloft et al 2017). But these correlations are very modest (Rehder et al 2021). They don’t enable us to work backward, from a drawing, and conclude {that a} child-artist has callous unemotional traits.
However what if a baby attracts one thing that’s actually creepy, scary, violent, or inappropriate?
I feel the takeaway is to use widespread sense, and understand that it’s regular for teenagers to discover all kinds of themes of their drawings — together with themes that we discover unsettling. That doesn’t imply that youngsters’s drawings are irrelevant as clues. However we have to take the context under consideration, and keep in mind that youngsters could embody disturbing parts for a lot of causes — not the least of which is publicity to violent or scary media. When youngsters draw footage that seem like scenes from horror motion pictures, it’s usually a mirrored image of their publicity to that sort of content material.
In different phrases, youngsters’s art work can convey necessary emotional experiences and even trauma, however the identical is true of different conduct, together with speech and social interactions. There isn’t something magically diagnostic about youngsters’s drawings. They’re merely of 1 a number of fascinating, and probably revealing, ways in which youngsters specific themselves. When the identical, disturbing parts maintain popping up — otherwise you see a sudden, worrying change — that is good purpose to dig deeper. However bear in mind: A single drawing isn’t sturdy proof that one thing is mistaken. At greatest, it’s a modest indicator that one thing may be mistaken. Discuss together with your baby, and seek the advice of your pediatrician for recommendation.
Extra studying
What can mother and father do to assist their youngsters cope with conflicts and damaging feelings? Research recommend that children expertise higher outcomes once we actively coach them. For extra data, see my article, “Emotion teaching: Serving to youngsters address damaging emotions.”
References: Youngsters’s drawings
Be aware: The summary and full quotation of Allen and Tussey’s evaluate may be discovered by following the hyperlink above.
Behrens KY and Kaplan N. 2011. Japanese youngsters’s household drawings and their hyperlink to attachment. Connect Hum Dev. 13(5):437-50.
Gernhardt A, Rübeling H, and Keller H. 2013. “That is my household”: Variations in youngsters’s household drawings throughout cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 44(7): 1166–1183.
Kloft L, Hawes D, Moul C, Sultan S, and Dadds M. 2017. Household Drawings earlier than and after Remedy for Little one Conduct Issues: Fluidity of Household Dysfunction. J Little one Fam Stud. 26(12):3476-3489.
Tempo CS, Guerriero V, Zavattini GC. 2020. Youngsters’s attachment representations: A pilot examine evaluating household drawing with narrative and behavioral assessments in adopted and group youngsters. Arts Psychother. 67:101612.
Tempo CS, Muzi S, and Vizzino F. 2022. Household drawing for assessing attachment in youngsters: Weaknesses and strengths. Entrance Psychol. 13:980129.
Rehder PD, Mills-Koonce WR, Wagner NJ, Zvara B, Willoughby MT. 2021. Attachment high quality assessed from youngsters’s household drawings hyperlinks to baby conduct issues and callous-unemotional behaviors. Connect Hum Dev. 23(3):239-256.
Wagner NJ, Mills-Koonce WR, Willoughby MT, Zvara B, Cox MJ; Household Life Venture Key Investigators. 2015. Parenting and youngsters’s representations of household predict disruptive and callous-unemotional behaviors. Dev Psychol. 51(7):935-48.
Zvara BJ, Mills-Koonce WR, Garrett-Peters P, Wagner NJ, Vernon-Feagans L, Cox M; Household Life Venture Key Contributors. 2014. The mediating position of parenting within the associations between family chaos and youngsters’s representations of household dysfunction. Connect Hum Dev. 16(6):633-55.
Childlike drawing of cheerful scene, with balloon and animals, by Strekalova / istock
