"I Can't Draw!"

For some children the automatic response is "I can't do that" when they've bearly even given it a good try. You have to wonder if they have somehow picked up that feigned inability leads down a path to excessive praise! lol...

Anyway, when my daughter says to me "Mummy, I can't draw that!" my first response is to ask her to give it three tries and then I can give her a little help to get started. She's almost 5 now so I think this approach is age-appropriate... she learns that she's not allowed to just accept defeat without putting in some effort, but she also knows that help is there if she really needs it.

At a young age children want to represent what they see in a 'realistic' way and I say this loosely, but they are also not as hard on themselves. 5 and 6 year olds can draw some really funky looking things and put a story to the picture that will blow your mind!

As they get older they begin to want to match their drawing to what they see elsewhere and this is when it is good to expose children to different ways of drawing and types of art. Not everyone can draw a tiger that looks like it can jump off the page, but who needs that?!? Art is about expression afterall. When children see that some artists are famous for making abstract marks on a paper or bringing shapes together in different ways they begin to loosen up and be less harsh on themselves.

How do you respond when your child says they can't do something?

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